I want to enter dates in the format MM/YY (09/10 means september 2010). I first
formatted cells to be in the MM/YY format, then entered strings like 09/09 or
04/09 etc. However, these are displayed as such in the cell, but in the formula
bar they appear as 10/09/2009. How do you remove this automatic formatting? More
generally, why don't you remove ALL  auomatic formatting from OO, and let people
choose if they want the program to read their minds and do things they don't
ask? It would be nice to include in next version a preliminary option like: do
you want OO to read your mind, e.g. automatically format lists, dates, names,
common phrases or do you want it to be inert and just respond to your commands
and let you define if and what automaticities you want to use? People like me
would definitely prefer the latter. 
Gabriele