[Solved] Date format and Regional Settings

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A.G.Forman
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[Solved] Date format and Regional Settings

Post by A.G.Forman »

Welcome beginner. Please answer all of the questions below which may provide information necessary to answer your question.
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Which version of OpenOffice.org are you using? 2.2.1
What Operating System (version) are you using? WINDOWS XP
What is your question or comment? The date format is the American and not the European one i.e the month comes first and then the day. This happens when the cursor is hovering over a writer document and the box with this and various other information appears. I am fairly certain that this was not the case until recently
Last edited by Hagar Delest on Tue Jun 10, 2008 11:19 am, edited 3 times in total.
Reason: tagged the thread as Solved and moved to the right forum.
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Villeroy
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Re: DATE FORMAT

Post by Villeroy »

Set Menu:Tools>Options...LanguageSettings>Languages, "Languages for new documents".
This affects all brand new documents. Add option "Current document only" in order to modify the language for the currently active document.
Please, edit this topic's initial post and add "[Solved]" to the subject line if your problem has been solved.
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A.G.Forman
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Re: DATE FORMAT

Post by A.G.Forman »

Thanks Villeroy. I have gone to "Languages" and set to "English UK" but this hasn't changed the date setting to the information box that appears when I hover over a document in a folder. A letter typed today appears as 2/22/08! Confusing when you are searching back for files!
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Villeroy
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Re: DATE FORMAT

Post by Villeroy »

The file dates the File>Open... and File>Save... dialog? I see US dates when I set my operating system locale to en-US.
Please, edit this topic's initial post and add "[Solved]" to the subject line if your problem has been solved.
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A.G.Forman
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Re: DATE FORMAT

Post by A.G.Forman »

I see US dates too- not what I want. There must surely be a way of using the more logical date? When I hover the cursor over a file in thumbnail view I get a little box that says:-
< TYPE: Open Document text. TITLE: To MW. odt. AUTHOR: Andrew Forman.MODIFIED: 2//22/2008 2.17.41 pm. size: 15.1 kkB>
Actually I have just checked again and it keeps reverting back to English (USA) as fast as I change it so it seems to be a glitch which I shall have to learn to live with!
Isn't it rather irrational to put the date setting under "language", rather than "date format" (under "Help") which tells you about all sorts of other things but not how to format the date!
I just tried opening a new document with the language setting at English(UK) BUT when I look at the document it is still 2/22/2008![/b]
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Villeroy
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Re: DATE FORMAT

Post by Villeroy »

My first suggestion was due to a misunderstanding on my side. The language setting for new documents has an influence on dates displayed in text fields, among others.
I could not find a way to reproduce the US date in the file-open dialog until I changed the language of my operating system. This is a setting outside the office. I don't use Windows. Have a look at the Windws system panel if anything indicates a US language setting. Which type of date is shown in the Windows file explorer?

Under Linux I can start any program from the command line in a modified environment:

Code: Select all

cd /opt/openoffice.org2.3/program/
LANG=en_US.UTF8 ./soffice
This starts the office in a US environment. The file-open dialog shows "2/22/2008" for today's files.
Please, edit this topic's initial post and add "[Solved]" to the subject line if your problem has been solved.
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Martin.Flynn
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Re: DATE FORMAT

Post by Martin.Flynn »

If it's any help, that sounds more like it Villeroy. I've had the same problem on one computer but not on another running the same version of OOo. Maybe I can do something about that now?

Just tried it. Both m/c's are set to English UK in everything I've found being, language settings in OOo, regional settings in control panel, still the laptop shows US dates when I hover, the desktop UK. Missing something?
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A.G.Forman
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Re: DATE FORMAT

Post by A.G.Forman »

This seems to be a fault in the programme and I think I will have to learn to live with it- quite dangerous as you cannot be sure of the date of the file in some cases. Regional & Language Options is set to UK under "Settings" in "Control Panel", and under "Options" in OOO the language is also set to UK- although it usually reverts back to US immediately. Even when I tick the box "For this document only" for UK in "Options" it puts in the silly date
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kingfisher
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Re: DATE FORMAT

Post by kingfisher »

I don't use Writer. If something like this was happening in Calc, I would check the style settings (F11).
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TerryE
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Re: DATE FORMAT

Post by TerryE »

A.G.Forman wrote:When I hover the cursor over a file in thumbnail view I get a little box that says:-
< TYPE: Open Document text. TITLE: To MW. odt. AUTHOR: Andrew Forman.MODIFIED: 2//22/2008 2.17.41 pm. size: 15.1 kkB>
Actually I have just checked again and it keeps reverting back to English (USA)
This functionality is embedded in Explorer code within the Microsoft OS. It picks up these preferences from your language settings. So OOo is not in error here, it's an OS settings issue.

These are viewed and set in Control Panel->Regional and Language Options which in your case the Regional Options which should be set to English (United Kingdom). Your Languages->Advanced should be set to English (United Kingdom) and keyboard United Kingdom defaults. If these keep getting reset, then this is an issue with your OS setup. Are you a home user or a corporate user? This type of symptom usually only occurs if your Domain Admin has set up a GPO to force users to a fixed set or you have a logon profile that you pick up.
Ubuntu 11.04-x64 + LibreOffice 3 and MS free except the boss's Notebook which runs XP + OOo 3.3.
A.G.Forman
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Re: DATE FORMAT

Post by A.G.Forman »

Dear Terry E.
You are a Genius and a Superstar! All is now sweetness and light.
Whoever would have thought of looking under the "Advance" setting under "Regional & Language Options" to format dates! - not me anyway
TAB
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Re: DATE FORMAT

Post by TAB »

[quote="A.G.Forman"]"date format" (under "Help") which tells you about all sorts of other things but not how to format the date!
Yes; we read under 'Number Format Codes' stuff that seem very useful to define a date format, like
'Date Formats
To display days, months and years, use the following number format codes.
Month as 3.
M
Month as 03.
MM
Month as Jan-Dec
MMM
Month as January-December
MMMM
'
but... WHERE does one 'use' those codes??
:roll:
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kingfisher
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Re: [Solved] Date format and Regional Settings

Post by kingfisher »

In cell formats (menu Format >Cells : Numbers) and in cell styles (menu Format >Styles & Formatting : Numbers).
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TerryE
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Re: DATE FORMAT

Post by TerryE »

TAB wrote:but... WHERE does one 'use' those codes?? :roll:
You know we are the guys who answer the Qs but my two favourite ways of finding out stuff are the F1 key and google on some obvious phrase related to what I am looking for. In this case F1 and typing in "format codes" will give you as much as we can provide here :-)
Ubuntu 11.04-x64 + LibreOffice 3 and MS free except the boss's Notebook which runs XP + OOo 3.3.
TAB
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Re: [Solved] Date format and Regional Settings

Post by TAB »

This issue does not seem 'solved' to me. We need a way to set the format independently of the language --for example, I like the format YYYY-NN-DD, as in '2008-03-15', regardless of whether I am writing in English, French or Russian (Actually, I don't know Russian...), and regardless of my OS settings --what if I use somebody else's computer, with different settings?
It would be so simple if one could, under Tools/Options/OpenOffice.org/General, enter a template using y for year, M for month (letter), n for month (number), D for day (letter), d for day (number), h (H for 24-h notation) for hour, i for minute, s for second. All other characters (blanks, dashes, etc) would be preserved, including the extra y, m, n, ... that would appear after their first occurrences. Not that anyone would want such a complicated date format, but this rule would avoid conversion errors.) The day and month names, if called for, would be stored in strings according to the document language, eg 'Monday, Tuesday, ' or 'lundi, mardi, ..' Examples:
yyyy-MMM-dd =>2008-Mar-15; 2008-May-15;
yyyy-MMMMM-dd =>2008-March-15; 2008-May-15;
yyyy/MMM/dd (DDD) at h:i =>2008/March/15 (Sat) at 8:30 AM
DDD, MMM dd, yy =>Sat, March 15 , 08
DDDDDD dd MMMMM yyyy => lundi 3 mars 2008
HH h ii => 20 h 45 (The third 'h', unneeded, is not converted)
HH:ii => 08:05; 22:45
h:i => 8:5 AM; 10:45 PM
hh:ii => 08:05 AM
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Villeroy
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Re: [Solved] Date format and Regional Settings

Post by Villeroy »

Just keep number format language "Default".
Please, edit this topic's initial post and add "[Solved]" to the subject line if your problem has been solved.
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sapphire
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Re: [Solved] Date format and Regional Settings

Post by sapphire »

I solved this by opening INSERT, FIELDS, OTHER, or Ctrl+F2 DATES, under formats find ADDITIONAL FORMATS..., in this dialog box you can make your own custom date at the bottom.This is where you input the codes. I made several different formats that I like to use in my word docs.
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TheGurkha
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Re: [Solved] Date format and Regional Settings

Post by TheGurkha »

@Sapphire: Thanks for the tip.
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lunarfish
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Re: [Solved] Date format and Regional Settings

Post by lunarfish »

I've got a similar problem which is driving me mad in both Writer and in Calc. (Windows XP OOo 3.1)

The problem I have is that when I type a date literal as dd/mm/yyyy it changes it into dd/mm/yy. Also I can explicitly format date for cells in Calc to dd/mm/yyyy but when I save the Calc spreadsheet as Excel (.xls) and then reopen it in Calc it changes the dates back to dd/mm/yy on import.

I've checked my Region and Language settings (Regional Options -> Customize -> Date tab, Languages -> Details and Advanced)and the language settings in OOo -> Tools -> Options. These are all set to English (UK) and the short date format is set to dd/mm/yyyy.

I thought it was quite clever making Open Office use whatever the user's locale settings were but I can't get it to work.

I'm almost considering buying a Microsoft Office licence! Can anyone suggest anything else I can try?

Cheers. Dan
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Villeroy
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Re: [Solved] Date format and Regional Settings

Post by Villeroy »

lunarfish wrote:'ve checked my Region and Language settings (Regional Options -> Customize -> Date tab, Languages -> Details
OOo has it's own libraries of locale settings. It may read your operating system's locale when required, but it won't read any customizations on operating system level. With OS en-US and nothing else specified OOo applies it's own US locale. This way there is a good chance that every ODF document looks like the original regardless of the used system and office software.
The application locale applies to all numbers in tables, fields and form controls. The linguistic settings apply to written text.
The application locale can be overwritten in the respective number format options. The linguistic locale can be overwritten in the font options of the respective text portion.
Please, edit this topic's initial post and add "[Solved]" to the subject line if your problem has been solved.
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garydale
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Re: [Solved] Date format and Regional Settings -really this time

Post by garydale »

To solve the problem, select the entire date (so that it is highlighted), right click on it and select "Fields...". This brings up a dialogue box that allows you to select the format you want.
sprasadh
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Re: [Solved] Date format and Regional Settings

Post by sprasadh »

Just made a wild try on Windows XP.

Second Field text box is Currency which should read $123,456,789.00.
Fifth field text box is Long Date format which should be Day, Month date, Year (eg. Monday, May 10, 2010).

Select the Language from the dropdown on top such that you get the two above mentioned readings.Logout and Login you can see XP in English Language. Simply the 47th option in Language field is English. :)
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MathUHenry
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Re: [Solved] Date format and Regional Settings

Post by MathUHenry »

I finally figured out how to do this and am going through and posting the solution to the threads I've been reading for help:

1) in spreadsheet press Ctrl F11
2) Default - Modify
3) Date
4) change the language until you find one that defaults to the format you like (you CANNOT specify your own format) I like Uyghur and Zulu
5) click OK - OK
6) File - Templates - Save
7) File - Templates - Organize
8) right click the saved template and "Set As Default Template"

When a date is entered, it will now be recognized from the correct format and will be rendered in the correct format.
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