Microsoft Fixes Excel Feature That Forced Scientists to Rename Human Genes::Microsoft now allows users to disable automatic date conversion, which means scientists no longer have to worry about using alternative names for genes.

    • LastYearsPumpkin@feddit.ch
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      18
      ·
      1 year ago

      You could already, after the fact, and per cell.

      If you’re importing 100,000 rows in, the damage to your data is already done by the time you’re at the step where you can set the field to not convert.

    • MHLoppy@fedia.io
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      5
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      It is, I’ve used that to prevent automatic removal of leading zeroes when reading the values of bytes.

      Based on the article it seems like it’s just a matter of not having to spend the time (and mental overhead) of doing that for all required columns and never slipping up on it (now just set and forget).

    • Mr_Dr_Oink@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      So did i. Format cell(s) > data type (or something) then just seleect text, or custom or whatever.

      • FelipeFelop
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        The problem happens with the anutonated import of data from a piece of equipment. It will be in .csv or .txt format. Excel will do the conversion as it tries to work out what is in each row or column.

        The worksheet is then processed automatically by other software, so no human is there to find the row or column to change the format.

        There’s an awful lot of data generated all the time so it would take too long to stop the automated process and manually change formats. Easier to rename the gene.