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Excel 2k formula format; Not displaying decimals in Excel while keeping precision?

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December 02, 2010, 05:39 AM
Wep5622
Excel 2k formula format; Not displaying decimals in Excel while keeping precision?
I'm struggling with an EXL2K FORMULA type report where the numbers displayed in the Excel sheet should be rounded to whole numbers, but their subtotals should be calculated using their original precisions.
Is there some way to set the cell number-format in Excel different to what the numeric precision is that the report puts in the sheet?

As an example, if I have:
1.33
2.33
3.33

I want to see in Excel:
A
---
1
2
3
--- +
7

The total is achieved by the formula =SUM(A1:A3) in the cell, but obviously if the numbers are rounded the total would be 1+2+3 = 6, which is the wrong answer. It should be 1.33+2.33+3.33 = 6.99 which then gets rounded to 7.


I realise I could achieve this by calculating the subtotals using WebFOCUS instead of Excel, but in practice our users sometimes need to add corrections to the Excel sheet. The SUM being calculated from the numbers in the sheet is a rather nice benefit in such cases, so I'd prefer to keep that feature if it can be helped.

Not being able to do this would be a bit sad, as the guys at IBI were nice enough to fix a cell-referencing bug in the EXL2K FORMULA format for us (Thanks guys!).


WebFOCUS 8.1.03, Windows 7-64/2008-64, IBM DB2/400, Oracle 11g & RDB, MS SQL-Server 2005, SAP, PostgreSQL 11, Output: HTML, PDF, Excel 2010
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December 02, 2010, 11:00 AM
Francis Mariani
I don't think you can do anything about this, other that using Excel Templates. I've struggled with this precise problem for quite a while and threw in the towel.

I am very curious about "the guys at IBI were nice enough to fix a cell-referencing bug in the EXL2K FORMULA format" - please elaborate.


Francis


Give me code, or give me retirement. In FOCUS since 1991

Production: WF 7.7.05M, Dev Studio, BID, MRE, WebSphere, DB2 / Test: WF 8.1.05M, App Studio, BI Portal, Report Caster, jQuery, HighCharts, Apache Tomcat, MS SQL Server
December 03, 2010, 03:33 AM
Wep5622
I feared as much, here goes another towel then. If anyone needs a towel, there must be a ring full of them somewhere...
Too bad we're stuck with Excel 2k, we can't use templates.

Regarding the issue with EXL2K FORMULA format and cell references; I've never found out what exactly was causing the issues I was having, but what I was seeing was this:

I have a sheet with border-lines between sections of calculations and a few explicit page-breaks. It has several levels of subtotals and a grand total in the very last row. The sums were incorrect, and plain invalid later on in the sheet. On closer inspection it turned out that the SUM() in the total-cells was off by more and more rows the further down you went in the sheet.
Removing both the borders and the page-breaks fixed the off-by-n problem, but I needed at least the borders.

This works now, I haven't seen this issue reoccur since IBI sent us a Hotfix (106).


WebFOCUS 8.1.03, Windows 7-64/2008-64, IBM DB2/400, Oracle 11g & RDB, MS SQL-Server 2005, SAP, PostgreSQL 11, Output: HTML, PDF, Excel 2010
: Member of User Group Benelux :
December 03, 2010, 10:51 AM
Tony A
quote:
we can't use templates

Is this a company / site based decision or is there another reasoon?

T



In FOCUS
since 1986
WebFOCUS Server 8.2.01M, thru 8.2.07 on Windows Svr 2008 R2  
WebFOCUS App Studio 8.2.06 standalone on Windows 10 
December 06, 2010, 03:43 AM
Wep5622
Simple enough reason, we use Excel 2k. It's not compatible with that feature.


WebFOCUS 8.1.03, Windows 7-64/2008-64, IBM DB2/400, Oracle 11g & RDB, MS SQL-Server 2005, SAP, PostgreSQL 11, Output: HTML, PDF, Excel 2010
: Member of User Group Benelux :
December 06, 2010, 04:43 AM
Tony A
I am guessing that when you say Excel 2K you not mean it as in the format EXL2K but Excel 2000 (e.g. Office XP)?

It's surprising how quickly we forget the limitations of earlier releases of software!

T



In FOCUS
since 1986
WebFOCUS Server 8.2.01M, thru 8.2.07 on Windows Svr 2008 R2  
WebFOCUS App Studio 8.2.06 standalone on Windows 10 
December 06, 2010, 08:06 AM
Wep5622
That's correct.


WebFOCUS 8.1.03, Windows 7-64/2008-64, IBM DB2/400, Oracle 11g & RDB, MS SQL-Server 2005, SAP, PostgreSQL 11, Output: HTML, PDF, Excel 2010
: Member of User Group Benelux :