SoftMaker.com

I like to use a spreadsheet to manage parts lists for my woodworking business. this involves working with fractional numbers (I'm in the US). my preference is to use the same input format as autocad- for a distance of one and one half inch I type in 1-1/2. if the number falls into the possible formats for a date, even in mixed separator format such as 1-1/2 the program automatically converts it to date code- it changes the value of the cel. for instance, if I input 3/4 it changes it to 03/04/2009 which makes the data useless to me. it does this even if the cel format is set to fraction. in excel I would set the cel or even the whole spreadsheet format to text, which made it possible for me to produce a usable printout but made it impossible to run functions on the data. planmaker doesn't even seem to have a text format option.

Ideally what I'd like is to be able to input fractional number data, run functions on it- add up a column of numbers, for instance- and have a fractional number output.

Off the top of my head, did you try using an apostrophe in front of the these numbers? I'll test to see if there is something else that could be quickly done, but I know that this works as well.

Update:

I think I found a better solution. Try the following from the help manual:

Notes on entering text

To enter text in a cell, simply type it in.

In some rare cases, you may want to “force” PlanMaker to consider a number, a date, or a formula as text. In that case, put a single quotation mark in front of your input. This prompts PlanMaker to treat the content as text. When, for example, you enter '42 (including the single quotation mark), PlanMaker treats this as text, not a number.

Hint: When you have entered several text entries in a column (one on top of each other), you can open a selection list of these entries by pressing the key combination Alt+Shift+(down arrow) in a cell directly above or below the entries.

A list of all text entries directly above and below this cell will open. You can now select one of these entries and press the Enter key to paste it into the cell. This can save you a lot of time when you have to enter a large number of identical text entries.

Note: This feature works only with text entries – not with numbers, dates, or formulas.

Another hint: In addition, when you fill out a cell, PlanMaker automatically makes suggestions from the text entries directly above or below the cell.

Example: You have entered the values “New York”, “Rio” and “Tokyo” into a column. If you type the letter “N” in the cell directly below these entries, the program automatically suggests “New York”. If you type the letter “T”, “Tokyo” is suggested, etc.

To accept the suggestion, press the Enter key. To reject it, simply continue typing or press the Del key.

Note: In case you do not want PlanMaker to make suggestions while you are typing, you can always turn this feature off. Choose Tools > Options, switch to the Edit tab and deactivate the Autocomplete Cells option.

ok, that's useful for forcing input to act as text. kind of inconvenient when there is a lot of non-recurring text entry to do, and it's a bit confusing to have to add a character to the entry to force a number that you really want to use as a number to behave as text, but it will let me make printable output.

I played a bit more with fraction formatting cells and entering data in possibly date-code format and got results closer to what I want, but I don't know why yet. is there somewhere I can read about the rules for fractional formatted cels? how does PM process the math when reading fraction formatted cels?

and is there a way to force planmaker to stop assuming date codes?

thank you
Bridger

I looked at this, but I can't see an obvious way. Having said that, everytime I think something glaring like that is missing... someone from SM points out the way to do it. They staff are in on Monday again and should be able to help you out. Unfortunately for now, that is all I know. The only other way I can think of off the top of my head is to put spaces in like 4 / 5... I'm pretty sure it is NOT what you need, but it is another way. Ideally we'll both know on Monday.

Hello,

to use fractions enter 'a[space]b/c' where a,b,c are numbers (use a=0 for simple fractions).

Is input of the form '1-2/3' common? Excel (English 2003 or German 2007) doesn't allow it.

Hi Sven,

It is used for measurements. So any industry that uses carpentry or something like that will use it in North America.

The question was whether the style "1-2/3" is used, instead of the more common style "1 2/3".

autocad is standard design software for many industries. the number format it uses for mixed fractions is a-b/c. this is weak nomenclature because the - character is a mathematical symbol, so a-b/c could be interpreted as a minus b divided by c. however, this is the format it uses, and as such I type it over and over.

excel and planmaker interpret a-b/c as a date. this is very weak nomenclature- it appears to be trying to anticipate a typographical error. I cannot ever recall anyone using that format to represent a date. furthermore, what it does in interpreting the input as a date is not just change the way the number is displayed, it changes the data itself- the data as input is lost. this is disastrous behavior for an application which needs to be able to do math and handle important data.

thanks
Bridger

>to use fractions enter 'a[space]b/c' where a,b,c are numbers (use a=0 for simple fractions).


is there a way to get PM to reduce these fractions? say I have a column of numbers. they all have a common denominator of 16, but are expressed as their reduced fractions. I want them to display like this:

3/4 instead of 12/16
7/16 as 7/16
1 1/2 instead of 1 8/16
.
.
.
.etc

Hello,

there is now a Feature Request for future versions of PlanMaker to be able to handle such formats.

There is already a Feature Request for this.

Hi Sven,

I just thought of something. Another approach might be to allow the user to treat selected cells as text. In other words, if a cell has the "text" designation, PM would auto enter the first character as and apostrophe ' and thereby treat NOT try to calculate or interpret what comes after.

Hope I am making sense

Hi Jim,

there is already an Feature Request for a cell format "Text" where you first select the desired cells and then invoke Format=>Cell and select "Text" as cell format like in MS Excel.

Perfect... thanks for letting me know.