Re: Time representation in Writer

At 23:59 22/10/2011 +1100, Bruce Lloyd wrote:
>I was making a timetable in a table in a document in Writer and 
>having trouble getting time to show properly and wonder if there is 
>a way to change the configuration. The problem is when I want to 
>write a time as '8.30' Writer automatically truncates it to '8.3' if 
>I use a colon then Writer automatically makes it 8:30:00 (or was it 
>08:30:00) which is equally unsatisfactory. The only way I could 
>overcome the problem was make the time '8.31' or use a comma '8,30'. 
>If I needed '8.00' it ended up as '8' unless I wrote it as '8,00'
>
>I can't see why Writer bothers with such things as removing a zero 
>from the end of a decimal and presumably the problem/solution is in 
>table properties or Auto Correct or Auto Complete  but I could not 
>find it. It doesn't seem to happen when 8.00 is written in text just 
>in a table. Is there something I can change?

It bothers because it thinks that when you insert values into a table 
you will want to treat them as values, not text, and to do 
calculations with them - e.g. to sum of a column of figures.  In your 
case, values with a point are interpreted as numbers, not times 
(though this will be locale-dependent).  As you have discovered, 
using a colon as separator tells Writer to interpret the values as times.

As others have said, you can modify the format of numbers or times at 
Table | Number Format ... (or right-click | Number Format...).  But 
I'm guessing that you don't wish to do calculations with your values 
at all and just wish to enter the values without their being 
interpreted and reformatted.  If that is so, simply go to Tools | 
Options... | OpenOffice.org Writer | Table | Input in tables, and 
remove the tick from "Number recognition".  Without the tick, values 
remain as you enter them.

I trust this helps.

Brian Barker

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