Apache OpenOffice (AOO) Bugzilla – Issue 78878
Grouping cells makes incorrect sum
Last modified: 2013-08-07 15:12:27 UTC
This may be a bug or just a counter-intuitive result of grouping cells. Issue: Two columns that should add up to the same value don't. How to reproduce: - Open calc doc - Form three columns with 10 rows - Put the following headings, Animal Type, Animal Weight, Sum of Animal Group - Place values in first column going down Cat,Cat,Cat,Cat,Dog,Dog,Dog,Mouse,Mouse,Rabit - In second column put a random number between 1 and 20 in each row - In last column copy and past the values from second column - Go to the first Cat row, in the third column use the sum function to sum all the weights of Cats in row two. - Select the cell you just put the sum in for cats, select down over other Cat rows then hit the Merge Cells button, when prompted with an option dialogue say No. - Repeat until the third column has a summed weight for each animal type. - In the row below the last put a Total row in and then individually sum column two then three You will observe that while visually you would expect both columns to add up to the same number they don't. The reason is that the sum function is adding up values hidden under the merged cells. You can expose those numbers by highlighting the merged cell and unmerging it. Email me if you need any more information ==end==
Created attachment 46242 [details] Spreadsheet as described in bug report
Created attachment 46243 [details] Spreadsheet as described in bug report
Ignore the first file I uploaded. That was a mistake. P.S. this is my first OOo bug report so sorry if I broke any conventions.
Confirming with OOo 2.2.1 on Linux
Confirming with 2.2 on WinXP - as described.
Hhhmmm, the cells under the merged ones contain data and this data can be used in calculations, therefore the SUM function works as expected. But is this the desired behavior ? As this is not a defect but an enhancement request, user experience has to decide how to proceed. Frank
Set target.
Could this issue be targeted to 3.0? OOo shows completely incorrect behavior from users' point of view. And this may lead to "miscalculations" or wrong assumptions (especially if Calc is being used for financial calculations).