The US computer company Microsoft wants to use new settings to solve problems with the automatic conversion of scientific data in Excel. In the future it will be possible to deactivate the autoformatting of letters and numbers into a date, said product manager Chirag Fifadra in a blog post from October 19, 2023 with. The new function will be available on Windows from version 2309 (build 16808.10000) and on Macs from version 16.77 (build 23091003).
Three additional functions can be deactivated in the future:
- Remove leading zeros from numeric text and convert to a number
- Truncate numerical data to 15 digit precision and convert it to a number that can be displayed in scientific notation if necessary
- convert numeric data surrounding the letter E into a number displayed in scientific notation.
According to the blog post, in the future there will be a warning when importing .csv or .txt files if one of the file conversions mentioned is activated.
Common errors in genetics papers
The previous auto-conversion of letters and numbers into a date had led to frequent errors in genetics papers. Because the function could not be switched off, the research organization Human Genome Organization (Hugo) forced to do so in August 2020 (PDF) to change the abbreviations for around 30 human genes.
Affected were genes whose abbreviations Excel had previously misinterpreted and changed, such as the Membrane Associated Ring-CH-Type Finger 1 gene. It was abbreviated to MARCH1. Excel thought it was a date and made it 1-Mar. To prevent this, the gene is now abbreviated as MARCHF1. Almost 3,600 published genetics papers were examined for a study in 2016. Errors caused by Excel were found in around 20 percent.