As of yesterday my Libre Office Calc [Version: 7.4.5.1, Build ID: 40(Build:1) CPU threads: 4; OS: Linux 6.1; UI render: default; VCL: gtk3, Locale: sr-RS (en_US.UTF-8); UI: en-US] has changed its behavior.
If I enter date and time (for instance: 11.12.2023 13:13) to a cell which is formatted to show only it’s date portion, the entry is converted to text. Without the time part it is correctly recognized as date. I won’t display (format) the cell with time because of space, the time information is needed only for calculations.
In my Example.ods, which is a part of larger spreadsheet, cells C2:C4 were entered earlier and contain time part (which can’t be changed without conversion to text), while C5 and C6 were entered today.
My question is: How to enter time info to this cells?
Example.ods (12.5 KB)
Enter the date in ISO format 2023-12-11 13:13
Are you sure that you enter the date using a correct date acceptance pattern? E.g., it might be e.g. D/M/Y, using slashes, not dots; and then both 11/12/2023 13:13 and 11/12/2023 would be recognized, but not 11.12.2023 13:13 nor 11.12.2023. Indeed, the patterns may be amended, as well as locale may be changed to a correct one.
but not
11.12.2023 13:13nor11.12.2023.
First one was O.K. until yesterday, the second is valid even now.
Thank you! It works!
Thanks to EarnestAl the problem is solved.
But the mystery is still there: How to enter date+time in my locale?
You should read the help in the link given by @mikekaganski.
ISO format works for all locales in addition to other patterns specified
I have read it quite a few times. It deals with DATE formats only and date-only is correctly recognized by my LO. I have an issue with DATE+TIME recognition which starts after the full update of my OS (# urpmi --auto-update).
If I set my locale in Tools > Options > Language Settings > Languages to Serbian Cyrillic (Serbia) then I can enter 11.12.2023 13:13 and the cell format will show 11.12.2023 as you expect.
The important thing to remember is that the number pad decimal point becomes a comma which is the correct decimal indicator for Serbia. If I use the number pad to enter your sample I get 11,12,2023 13:13 which is text.
I can change the setting for the decimal separator key in the same place but that would be likely to cause even more problems if I were living in Serbia
Thank you EarnestAl, this is really helpful!
I was suspecting that something in my locales went wrong after the system update. I will investigate it later, now I am satisfied with ISO format.
BTW I don’t enter the date-times via keyboard, I copy a cell containing “=NOW()” and paste the contents as a text. All I had to do to solve my problem was to format the “NowCell” to ISO. The dates are stored as floating point decimals anyway, so nothing else have to be changed.