Issue 127428

Summary: XLS import: Number not recognized, treated as string in a sum
Product: Calc Reporter: Colon Farlow <cwfw>
Component: open-importAssignee: AOO issues mailing list <issues>
Status: UNCONFIRMED --- QA Contact:
Severity: Normal    
Priority: P5 (lowest)    
Version: 4.1.3   
Target Milestone: ---   
Hardware: All   
OS: All   
Issue Type: DEFECT Latest Confirmation in: ---
Developer Difficulty: ---
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Description Flags
4 columns of data, right 2 columns w/ same numbers sume differently none

Description Colon Farlow 2017-05-30 19:13:52 UTC 
Created attachment 86121 [details]
4 columns of data, right 2 columns w/ same numbers sume differently

The attached file shows a bizarre set of answers. Each of the four columns are summed with the sum answer shown at the bottom of column. Note the right most 2 columns have the same numbers but a different sum.  The left 2 columns are “almost” backward order from the right two columns. The problem is that cell D5 must be treated as a string rather than a number. But if you examine all the numbers in Format Cell they appear as Numbers. But if you retype the number 1222.89
in D5 the sum is correct, 14870.42. 

The only way this error was found was to open this file with EXCEL and it shows something funny about cell D5. Like EXCEL thinks it is a string. There is no indication that anything is wrong with D5 in OpenOffice Calc. But apparently EXCEL know something is wrong with that cell because it shows a little symbol in the cell. I have no idea how that cell is different than all other cells. It could have been typed in or pasted in, I don't remember.

There should be a visual indication that the cell D5 is somehow defective or the correct sum should be shown. The current error is a little scary.

Thanks for resolving this problem.

Colon Farlow
Comment 1 Marcus 2017-05-30 21:13:30 UTC 
Thanks for your report. I can see the problem also on Linux. Seems to be a special case for the MS Excel import filter.