Calc documentation on MID/RIGHT is unclear

[nurdglaw]

I’m attempting a fairly trivial task - take a name specified in one column and write it into two columns - i.e my source sheet has a column with names in the format “John Smith”. I want to split this into two columns “John” and “Smith”. I managed to type in the appropriate formula for the forename [=LEFT(A1,SEARCH(" ", A1)-1)] the first time. I wasn’t as successful with the surname. (Incidentally, I know that this approach won’t work for all names and it’s easy to construct examples that break this algorithm. I’m presenting a simplified version of my requirements to illustrate my point.)

So, I turned to Google for help. The first hit I followed led me to a help.libreoffice.org/Main_Page which has information for earlier versions of LO. Fair enough.

I followed the link at the top of the page to help for the latest version.

• This page is for help on LibreOffice Writer. This wasn’t obvious enough for me to spot it first time around. When I did notice, I was able to switch to help for Calc fairly easily although that wasn’t obvious either.

I then found my way to a list of text functions.

• This page would be much more usable if the functions were listed in alphabetical order.

Eventually I found the information for RIGHT. I want a function that gives me from character N to the end of the string. RIGHT gives me the last N characters. Fair enough.

I checked MID. That will give me M characters starting at character N. I would expect the third argument to be optional and to default to “all remaining characters” if omitted.

Maybe there is such a function but I can’t easily find it in the list of text functions.

• I like to be a Good Citizen and report concerns like this when I see them. I don’t believe you’ve done this on purpose and I can’t expect you to fix it if you don’t know about it. It’s awfully difficult to report problems like this to you. The system works as documented, so it’s not a bug and shouldn’t be reported as such. I can’t find anywhere to request a new feature beyond a suggestion that I fund someone to do it, or do it myself and share the results with you. How about a “feedback” button on the help page and/or a “contact us” button somewhere obvious on the website - I couldn’t see anything on the help page or on https://help.libreoffice.org or on https://www.libreoffice.org.

You have produced some nice, free, software. It’s a shame to let yourselves down over pretty simple details.

[I apologise for not finding a more specific, perhaps better tag. Again, it’s not easy enough to browse the existing tags. That may be why you have 168 pages of tags.]

[It might be a nice idea to display the list of required tags permanently rather than force me to complete the Captcha for a third time.]

[mikekaganski]

This page is for help on LibreOffice Writer. This wasn’t obvious enough for me to spot it first time around.

It isn’t so. It’s a common welcome page, and is not specific to any module. So there was no need to switch to Calc. Why did you need that?

I then found my way to a list of text functions.

Well - you only needed to start typing MID on the initial page into the Index box. It would give you the result right away.

I checked MID. That will give me M characters starting at character N. I would expect the third argument to be optional and to default to “all remaining characters” if omitted.

LibreOffice spreadsheet functions have very strict requirements regarding interoperability with other spreadsheet software. What you propose is an incompatible change. The function works fine when you require too many characters, so just passing LEN(text) to the third parameter is enough to mean “the rest”.

[anon73440385]

I checked MID. That will give me M characters starting at character N. I would expect the third argument to be optional and to default to “all remaining characters” if omitted.

Then its RIGHT()…

[mikekaganski]

Note that this is the site that is for users to ask help from other users. So “I don’t believe you’ve done this on purpose and I can’t expect you to fix it if you don’t know about it” clearly goes to the wrong direction. Then,

I can’t find anywhere to request a new feature

If you are here on this site, then you could spot the How to use the Ask site link, where the enhancement request case is discussed. But even if you haven’t saw it: there’s the official homepage: www.libreoffice.org; it has top-level menu with GET HELP, which includes the Feedback link - and the latter has the section devoted to filing enhancement requests.

But wait! LibreOffice application’s own Help menu contains the “Send Feedback” item!

[LeroyG]

@nurdglaw,

I want to split this into two columns “John” and “Smith”.

Select the cells with the original data (i.e. “John Smith”). Choose menu Data - Text to Columns… , and check Separated by and Space, OK.

Also, you can post an enhancement request.

[erAck]

The easiest way to get help on a specific spreadsheet function when you are already in Calc is to open the Function Wizard (Ctrl+F2), search for the function and select it, then hit F1. On an already existing formula you can also hit Ctrl+F2 and place the cursor on a function name or in one of its parameters and hit F1.