Why does Calc ignore cells being formatted as Text

[TomJones]

Is there any way for Calc to reliably accept all plain text data into cells?

I need to create a table of test results (from Fiddler) where each cell would look like this; 0:00:00.046. I have formatted the cells as text. Calc changes my data, for the example above to 00:00:00:05, perhaps formatting it as Time but I am not sure on this point

edit: note for posterity; pasting the same data copied from Notepad++ does not exhibit this auto-rounding of the number as when the text source is Fiddler. I have raised a bug just in case this changing behavior is not by design (https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=74138)

[mariosv]

Have you tried with a single quote before data to avoid calc interpreting it as hours?

[Rugslug]

As you said, Format Cells as text before pasting. If you’re pasting, then Paste Special, Select Unformatted Text? If you’re typing it in, then mariosv’s single quote will force text. When I entered in the value as is, it automatically switched it to time. With the quote it will be text but the cell may still be formatted as a number. It could then be formatted as text.

[oweng]

Normal paste of the indicated value also appears to retain the text formatting and thus value (at least in v4.1.4.2) however the style of the cell is changed.

[TomJones]

Good suggestions, thank you both.

I did a table of tests, which I can’t paste or format in here unfortunately. There are two options here. The only fix that I can use (to keep my data unchanged) is that you have to tell Calc twice to do plain text; you have to format the cell as Text, and then do a special paste of Unformatted Text.

Especially considering the source is text only (Fiddler) I find Calc’s behavior disappointing; my recommendation to others to try moving off Microsoft Office is that LibreOffice wouldn’t include dumb or illogical behavior because it comes from a collective of smart and like-minded people. Text should only be text, it’s that simple surely. Quit fiddling with my data

The other option is that the ‘prepending a quote’ suggestion also works, which is great for others reading this.

[Rugslug]

Can you export a CSV file from fiddler? Then open the CSV file thru LO. Might give you better/different control over the data. And possibly easier handling of more data.

[TomJones]

I have the latest version of Fiddler 4, downloaded today, and LibreOffice 4.1.4.2. Unfortunately Fiddler doesn’t do an export of performance data to .csv that I can see (it’s a debug tool rather than a performance testing tool , AFAIK), and LibreOffice doesn’t take the plain text data in a manner that is intuitive for me. However Ctl-Shift-V gets the job done once you’ve set the cells to Text format