Can't change locale of Calc document

English
#1

I’m having trouble with a Calc spreadsheet. My system locale is “English (Ireland)”, with a date acceptance pattern of D/M/Y;D/M;D-M. I’m running Pop!_OS Linux 22.04.
The spreadsheet seems to be stuck in the “English (USA)” locale. If I add a new sheet to the spreadsheet, right-click any empty cell and select the “Format cells” option, it shows the language as “English (USA)”. Accordingly, any time I enter a date, it’s interpreted the wrong way (MM/DD/YYYY instead of DD/MM/YYYY) unless I select the range, open the cell formatting dialog and change the language to English (Ireland).

However, if I create a new spreadsheet and select “Format cells” on any empty cell, the language is “Default - English (Ireland)”.
Is there a way to change the region of the confused spreadsheet? I’ve tried:

  1. Going to Tools -> Options -> Languages and changing the locale and default language settings from “English (Ireland)” to something else, and then back.
  2. Tools -> Language -> For all text... -> English (Ireland)

What else can I do, other than making a new spreadsheet and copying the old spreadsheet’s sheets into it?

#4

As a sidenote, it might be useful to stick to the unambiguous ISO 8601 YYYY-MM-DD format, universally and uniformly understood, locale-independent, textually sortable, and (at least secondary) standard in most countries.

#5

Yes ISO 8601 is superior in almost all cases, and I use it wherever possible. It’s slightly wider though so I don’t use it for spreadsheets that are cramped for horizontal space.
Good to know it’s supported out-of-the-box by Calc though - I will use it for less busy sheets. :grinning:

#2

Check the setting in the default style of the offending spreadsheet. View |Styles - F11 - right click on Default and select Edit Style; look at the language setting in the Numbers tab.

1 Like
#3

That was exactly it! I don’t know how it ended up like that, but the default style was set with “English (USA)”. I changed it just now and that seems to have applied to all the other styles too.
Thanks!

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