Microsoft fixes the Excel feature that was wrecking scientific data

In 2020, scientists determined simply to remodel the alphanumeric symbols they used to signify genes reasonably than attempt to cope with an Excel characteristic that was decoding their names as dates and (un)helpfully reformatting them mechanically. Yesterday, a member of the Excel staff posted that the corporate is rolling out an replace on Home windows and macOS to repair that.

Excel’s automated conversions are meant to make it simpler and quicker to enter sure varieties of generally entered knowledge — numbers and dates, as an example. However for scientists utilizing fast shorthand to make issues legible, it might destroy revealed, peer-reviewed knowledge, as a 2016 research discovered.

Microsoft detailed the replace in a weblog submit this week, including a checkbox labeled “Convert steady letters and numbers to a date.” You possibly can most likely guess what that toggles. The replace builds on the Automated Knowledge Conversions settings the corporate added final 12 months, which included the choice for Excel to warn you when it’s about to get further useful and allow you to load your file with out automated conversion so you’ll be able to guarantee nothing shall be screwed up by it.

Microsoft’s weblog provides caveats, reminiscent of that Excel avoids the conversion by saving the information as textual content, which suggests the information could not work for calculations later. There’s additionally a recognized situation the place you’ll be able to’t disable the conversions when operating macros.