Stop reducing fractions

["Vincent A. Juliano" <vj...@optonline.net>]

Gentlemen/Ladies

I have been successful in properly entering fractions into my table.  Now however the fractions do not remain as I wrote them but are being reduced to the nearest single digit numerator as soon as I go to the next column to enter the next fraction.. 
what must I do to keep the fractions in their original form?

Thank you.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscribe@openoffice.apache.org
For additional commands, e-mail: users-help@openoffice.apache.org

Re: Stop reducing fractions

[Martin Groenescheij <Ma...@Groenescheij.COM>]

On 21-Mar-15 09:39, Vincent A. Juliano wrote:
> Gentlemen/Ladies
>
> I have been successful in properly entering fractions into my table.  Now however the fractions do not remain as I wrote them but are being reduced to the nearest single digit numerator as soon as I go to the next column to enter the next fraction..
> what must I do to keep the fractions in their original form?

If you have formatted the cell as Fraction it should display 1 1/4 when 
you enter 1.25 as value
If you have formatted as Number with 2 decimals it displays 1.25 with 
zero decimals if will display 1

Now if you enter 1 1/4 instead of 1.25 it displays 1 ¼, because this 
value is in the AutoCorrect table the problem
with this is that the value is treated as text instead of numeric and 
hence you can't use this in a calculation.

>
> Thank you.
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscribe@openoffice.apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: users-help@openoffice.apache.org
>
>


---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscribe@openoffice.apache.org
For additional commands, e-mail: users-help@openoffice.apache.org

Re: Stop reducing fractions

[Brian Barker <b....@btinternet.com>]

At 18:39 20/03/2015 -0400, Vincent A. Juliano wrote:
>I have been successful in properly entering fractions into my table.

Are we talking about a table in a text (Writer) document or material 
in a spreadsheet? (I suspect the answer may be the same in either case.)

>Now however the fractions do not remain as I wrote them but are 
>being reduced to the nearest single digit numerator as soon as I go 
>to the next column to enter the next fraction.

Good-oh! That's what I'd want. If I add two cells that each contain 
two, I expect to see the number 4 displayed as the result, not the 
text string "2+2", still less "3+1" - neither of which are exactly 
wrong. But it's perfectly possible to store and handle such text 
strings if you wish - but not easily to calculate with them, of course.

>what must I do to keep the fractions in their original form?

I don't think you can. If you add 1/3 and 1/6 and if you are 
genuinely calculating, you would surely want to see 1/2, not 3/6 or 
"1/3+1/6"? You probably need to decide whether you are representing 
these values for their appearance or as their actual value, in which 
latter case the simplest form would always be preferable.

o If you don't need to calculate, don't use the Fraction formatting 
style; instead, enter your values as Text.

o If you need to calculate but have some need for unusual formatting, 
you probably need to do the work yourself. There are various ways to do this.

  oo You could maintain two versions of the values - one for show and 
one for calculation. For reliability, you should calculate one from 
the other, not maintain them separately. You could hide the 
calculation version if you preferred.

  oo If the denominator was always the same, you could achieve what 
you ask using formatting. In the example above, you could store 2 and 
1 in your cells and sum them to 3. With the cell format set to #"/6" 
you would see 2/6 added to 1/6 to give 3/6. (This works both in text 
tables and spreadsheet documents.) But if you are always working in 
sixths, why not indicate that at the head of the column or outside 
the table and keep just the numerators in that table - just as you 
similarly would a physical unit.?

I trust this helps.

Brian Barker


---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscribe@openoffice.apache.org
For additional commands, e-mail: users-help@openoffice.apache.org