2023-10-24 16:30:00
A Microsoft fixed a confusion in Excel that converted scientific data, such as alphanumeric symbols used to represent genes, into dates and automatically reformatted them. The solution has arrived for the software in macOS e no Windows.
In fact, the solution adopted by the company to solve the problem was to introduce a check box in Excel with the option to “convert continuous letters and numbers to dates”, which is activated by default, by the way.
However, at least now there is a choice, and researchers no longer need to invent a completely new nomenclature to classify genes and be able to use Excel, but it is worth being careful when choosing to avoid automatic conversion.
Microsoft cited that with automatic conversion disabled, data is saved as plain text and therefore may not be suitable for mathematical calculations. Additionally, there is still a bug where conversions are not disabled when running macros.
It is worth remembering that, in 2020, scientists reformulated the alphanumeric symbols used to represent genes. However, the change did not work well with Excel’s automatic and intelligent cell content conversion functionality.
Unfortunately, Microsoft did not take into account all of the program’s use cases, and the numeric codes used by researchers to identify the genes that make up the human genome were often interpreted as dates.
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Finally, this conflict appears to have been resolved. The solution is available to anyone who uses:
Windows: Version 2309 (Build 16808.10000) or later; Mac: Version 16.77 (Build 23091003) or later.
To make changes to Excel settings, simply go to the File > Options > Data > Automatic Data Conversion tab and then choose the conversion(s) that will be disabled.
See also
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