SoftMaker.com

Hi - I recently purchased Softmaker Office 2008 and I have been seeing an issue where when I open an Excel file using Planmaker with dates formated in Excel to MM/DD/YYYY - the dates format in Planmaker defaults to DD/MM/YYYY. (which I think is standard European format?)

The regional settings are set to American English. I can select the data and change it to the format with the cell formatting commands, however when I load that sheet back into Excel - the dates show up as a custom format (MM/DD/YYYY) instead of the original format that the data was set to Date format (MM/DD/YYYY). This might cause issues for people I send the file to who do not have Planmaker, but use Excel instead.

I know this may seem trivial, but it is bothersome to me. Is there a way to change the default date format so that it always shows up as Date MM/DD/YYYY. Can I edit the default template? That does not seem like it would work.

Please let me know if you need further information. Thanks in advance for any help.

Hello,

unfortunately we can't reproduce that issue here. When I create a new worksheet in Ms Excel 2003, format the cells with a American date format (MM/DD/YY), save that file and open it in PlanMaker 2008 (revision 490) it shows exactly the same date (MM/DD/YY) in all formatted cells.
When I now save that file with PlanMaker and open it in Ms Excel the date is still shown in MM/DD/YY format.
But there seems to be an bug in Excel. When I choose "english (USA)" as local scheme and set the date to MM/DD/YY, save and close Excel and open it again with the same file,
it shows "chinese (Taiwan)" as local scheme.

Maybe you could send us a example file, so that we can reproduce the problem you have. Do you work with MS Excel 2003 or 2007?

However, you can create a cell style in PlanMaker (Format=>Cell Style=>New) and edit the cell format for that new style.
After that you can choose your created cell style from the formatting toolbar everytime you wish to use that style.

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Sven Leßmann
SoftMaker Software GmbH

Thanks for your reply Sven - Actually the date format I use is MM/DD/YYYY. When I tried it your way it worked normally, whenever I try with a file with the above format - that is when Planmaker moves it to DD/MM/YYYY. I will try to attach an example Excel 2003 file. I am using Excel 2003 with the latest updates. I am using the same version of Planmaker as you (revision 490).

I appreciate your help...

Hello,

we referred your problem to our developers and will inform you as soon as we have more information.

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Sven Leßmann
SoftMaker Software GmbH

I'm seeing this same problem as initially reported - any updates?

Running PlanMaker 2008(rev 504) on XP with the regional options in Control Panel set to English(United States) and Language Settings in PlanMaker set to English(US) too.

On a side note: Is there any way to have PlanMaker default any date fields to the Long Format? So, display the numeric date as Thursday, June 25, 2009. That would help avoid the problem by removing ambiguity.

Thanks,
Alan

I raised the priority for that problem and will inform you here as soon as I have more information.

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Sven Leßmann
SoftMaker Software GmbH

Hello, Just an FYI - I realize that this is still being worked on - however I would just like to express my frustration with this issue. I routinely use files created with MS Excel (2003 format) and if I open a file created with Excel that has dates formatted as MM/DD/YYYY, Planmaker (Revision 505) will always scramble the date formats and reverse them as DD/MM/YYYY.

Also, PM puts a leading zero in the month/day of the date whereas Excel does not. If I save the opened Excel file using Planmaker, the date format gets scrambled and ends up as a "custom" format in Excel which then keeps the leading zeros. I can select the dates and re-format them but this is a real pain in the you know what. This is not acceptable (in my opinion) when I have to send these files to other Excel users.

I love the software, but hate these seemingly obvious issues that have not been resolved within the software. Please see my capture for clarification. I realize that the issue is being worked on, but it is a major drawback to using Planmaker for me.

I have noticed the same problem. Please advise us all when it is resolved so we can update our software. I'm sure an update will be provided.
Thanks,
Ron

I don't think anyone is doing anything to resolve this issue. Developers are too busy working on Softmaker Office 2010 to help any existing customers by working on a fix to an issue in Softmaker Office 2008.

This issue is very frustrating and I have been asking for a fix for over a year and a half now. I guess an elevated spot in the problem queue really kicks it up a notch.

Thanks so much,

Don

This problem is essentially unchanged in the latest version of Planmaker 2010 Rev 569. The crux of the issue here is that when opening a sheet created with Excel 2003 with dates formatted as MM/DD/YYYY, Planmaker 2010 opens the file with dates formatted as DD/MM/YYYY (which I think is European format). When this happens, I have to select all the dates and change them to MM/DD/YYYY date format to get them to look right. I also have to place a checkmark in the "Don't show zeros" box.

The "Don't show zeros" option does not seem to affect the leading zeros in the date however so this does not appear to work for this format. When opening the files within Excel, the dates still have the leading zeros and the format is also listed as custom which causes problems when exchanging files with Excel users.

The whole issue could be resolved if - when opening an Excel file with dates formatted as MM/DD/YYYY - Planmaker would keep this format instead of changing it to the incorrect custom format.

Should I be posting in the Planmaker 2010 beta forum instead of this one?

Thanks

Please repost this in the new PlanMaker 2010 (non-beta) forum where it gets more attention.

Basically, we have completely rewritten PlanMaker's internal workings with the 2010 release, and this means that some things that customers have requested were laying dormant. Now that 2010 is out, we'll try to look at these reported requests for improvement.

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Martin Kotulla
SoftMaker Software GmbH