Background:

A user defined number format does not survive closing and reopening
openoffice.org spreadsheet.  Observed using both windows 2000 pro
(openoffice.org calc 2.4.0) and debian linux (calc 2.4.0) I have not found a
combination of meta-characters or format characters that can be used to avoid
this problem.  This problem has been present in calc (for me) for at least
several years.  I have seen bug reports and support requests which describe
similar behaviour but I have been unable to find where a bug report
acknowledging this behavior has been resolved or a support response has provided
a useful workaround if this is in fact a bug.

Problem description:

A user defined number format can be defined and used in a spreadsheet with
expected results.  If calc is closed and reloaded the user defined format is
corrupted and cells where it was used no longer display as expected.

Expected behavior:

cell formatting and user defined number formats do not change as a result of
closing and re-opening the spreadsheet.

Steps to reproduce:

1. open a new spreadsheet.
2. in cell c6 enter the number 12.34
3. do Format|Cells
4. the format cells dialog appears with focus on the Numbers tab
5. change decimal places to 2
6. the format code shown in the format code box changes to 0.00
7. change the format code to 0"_".00
8. the format cells dialog changes as expected in various places.
9. click the green arrow and ok.
10. observe that cell c6 displays 12_.34
11. enter 98769.88 in cell d10, apply the above user defined format and observe
that cell d10 displays 98769_.88.
12. do File|Close and save the changes
13. using the quickstarter, reload calc and the above spreadsheet.
13. observe that cell c6 displays as 12.34_
and cell d10 displays as 98769.88_.
14. select cell c6 and do Format|Cells
15. observe that in both the Number and User-defined categories on the numbers
tab of the format cells dialog the above user defined format now dispays as
0.00"_" and not as entered per 7. above.