2 minor annoyances while entering data

Hi,
I have always been using mainly Quattro Pro, for some years I am shifting to LibreOffice Calc.

I have some minor, but very regular irritations. I guess mainly because old habits die hard.
But perhaps they are easy to fix, or I have some settings wrong?

  1. When I enter a text in a cell, and I see a mistake, I want to go Left with the left arrow key.
  • LO enters the cell and moves to the cell to the left.
  • QPW moves IN the text so I can correct it. Much easier.
    Same with control-Left for jumping to the previous word.
    (This does not happen when I press F2 first)
  1. When entering a value in a cell, for example I type “12” and enter
    Both QPW and LO recognise this as a number, and it can be used for calculations.

Then I want to add to that number (or divide it, etc): F2 , “+20” , enter

  • QPW knows it is a number, sees it as a formula 12+20 and shows 32 .
    Still a number, available for calculations
  • LO changes the number to text, and then shows “12+20”,
    It does not calculate with it anymore.
    Why is that?
    I have to manually add “=” before the 12, so it will see it as a formula and add those two numbers
    I cannot believe it is standard practice to always type ‘=’ or ‘+’ before a number ?

Any tips?

It is a pseudo-standard (Excel) to always type = or + or - in front of a formula. Positive numbers can be typed with + or no prefix, negatives with a - as prefix.
The prefix for literal text is the apostrophe. HOWEVER, some extra clever folks destroyed this feature. It will be fixed in upcoming version 7.5.
LO 7.5 (like all versions of Excel and OpenOffice Calc and Gnumeric) will treate any leading apostrophe as a text tag.
’001 enters the literal text “001” (3 characters, no numeric value).
’=A1+B1 enters the literal text “=A1+B1”
’abc enters the text abc ignoring the leading apostrophe. Current versions of LibreOffice wrongly include the leading apostrophe as part of the text.
’'abc enters the text 'abc with one leading apostrohe. Current versions of LibreOffice wrongly include the first leading apostrophe as part of the text.
Instead of the text tag, you may format the input cells with number format colde @ (literal text) before you enter something. Formatting has no effect on existing values.

Concerning navigation inside the cell: Press F2 first. Otherwise cell range navigation prevails.
Concerning formula recognition: Concepts differ.
(Don’t know Quattro. How would you enter 12+20 as a text in QPW?)

Like how you introduce a number as text.

Time ago I reported as enhancement, but won’t fix, was the result.
Why a valid formula shouldn’t be accepted as such?
For what are mainly spreadsheets?

I’m not sure. The group storing lists for mail-merge is quite big…