In 2020, scientists determined simply to remodel the alphanumeric symbols they used to symbolize genes reasonably than attempt to cope with an Excel function that was decoding their names as dates and (un)helpfully reformatting them robotically. Yesterday, a member of the Excel workforce posted that the corporate is rolling out an replace on Home windows and macOS to repair that.
Excel’s automated conversions are supposed to make it simpler and quicker to enter sure sorts of generally entered information — numbers and dates, as an example. However for scientists utilizing fast shorthand to make issues legible, it might destroy printed, peer-reviewed information, 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 may most likely guess what that toggles. The replace builds on the Automated Information Conversions settings the corporate added final yr, 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 possibly can guarantee nothing will probably be screwed up by it.
Microsoft’s weblog provides caveats, reminiscent of that Excel avoids the conversion by saving the info as textual content, which suggests the info might not work for calculations later. There’s additionally a recognized concern the place you possibly can’t disable the conversions when operating macros.