[Solved] How to turn off auto date correction?

[Bubba_Fett]

I'm making a spreadsheet and at first, I had no problem entering dates, but after the the first three went in, the program began auto-correcting the dates to fit its own format (I want my own, custom format with calendar date then calendar day name).

So it went from the "12/08/11 Thursday" I typed in to "12/08/12" and I can't stop it from changing the date format and even the year I enter no matter if I delete it, or cut/paste other dates into that cell. How do I turn this super-annoying feature off? I understand how it's generally useful and preferable to have it on, but not for the purpose I'm making this particular spreadsheet for.

Did a search and found this advice:

"You can change the date format by right-clicking the cell and selecting Number Format."

I selected the date format I wanted by doing this, however, all that does is turn my dates into a string of hash tags (####).

This is my first time using the OO spreadsheet program, but I seem to recall having MS Excel flip out on me like this before, by doing a similar thing to auto-correct dates, which resulted in inconsistent date formats within the spreadsheet.

[Charlie Young]

I'm making a spreadsheet and at first, I had no problem entering dates, but after the the first three went in, the program began auto-correcting the dates to fit its own format (I want my own, custom format with calendar date then calendar day name).

So it went from the "12/08/11 Thursday" I typed in to "12/08/12" and I can't stop it from changing the date format and even the year I enter no matter if I delete it, or cut/paste other dates into that cell. How do I turn this super-annoying feature off? I understand how it's generally useful and preferable to have it on, but not for the purpose I'm making this particular spreadsheet for.

Did a search and found this advice:

"You can change the date format by right-clicking the cell and selecting Number Format."

I selected the date format I wanted by doing this, however, all that does is turn my dates into a string of hash tags (####).

This is my first time using the OO spreadsheet program, but I seem to recall having MS Excel flip out on me like this before, by doing a similar thing to auto-correct dates, which resulted in inconsistent date formats within the spreadsheet.

The ### is because the column isn't wide enough. Double-click on the right border of the column heading to widen it.

[MrProgrammer]

I selected the date format I wanted by doing this, however, all that does is turn my dates into a string of hash tags (####).

Read section 2. Controlling how data is displayed in Ten concepts that every Calc user should know.

So it went from the "12/08/11 Thursday" I typed in to "12/08/12" and I can't stop it from changing the date format and even the year I enter no matter if I delete it, or cut/paste other dates into that cell.

That's also covered in the same section. However my version changes "12/08/11 Thursday" to "12/08/11", not "12/08/12". Format the cells before entrering the dates. There's no need to provide the day of the week. Calc will just ignore it since the program can calculate it once you've supplied the date.

I want my own, custom format with calendar date then calendar day name

You want format code MM/DD/YY DDDD.

How do I turn this super-annoying feature off?

I suspect don't really want to turn it off, but instead want to understand how to control it. That's explained in the tutorial link above. You would turn off the automatic date formatting by marking the cell as text before you enter a value. However then the cell will contain text, not a date, and Calc can't do things like determine the day of the week or sort the data properly unless it's a date.

I suggest that you read the entire tutorial. It may save you hours of time and frustration.

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[Bubba_Fett]

Thanks for your help guys!