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0 pointsnanny10y ago0 comments

Are you serious? Excel is complete and utter trash. Check out some "quirks" from the Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Excel#Quirks.

Some of the worst ones:

* Microsoft Excel will not open two documents with the same name and instead will display an error

* Excel includes January 0, 1900 and February 29, 1900, incorrectly treating 1900 as a leap year. The bug originated from Lotus 1-2-3, and was purposely implemented in Excel for the purpose of bug compatibility.

* Can't handle dates before 1900

* Despite the use of 15-figure precision, Excel can display many more figures (up to thirty) upon user request. But the displayed figures are not those actually used in its computations, and so, for example, the difference of two numbers may differ from the difference of their displayed values.

In addition, it is completely useless for handling any type of delimited file. By default it supports csv. If you want to edit a pipe-delimited file, you have to dig into the language settings of Windows, change the default delimiter, and open the file. Then, you cannot edit comma-separated files without changing it back first. So, there's no way to convert one to the other. Same problem with tab delimiters. EDIT: one person has mentioned the import data feature, but that doesn't solve the problem. You cannot edit and save anything other than commas without changing the Windows language settings.

It also trims off leading zeros from fields in csv files. If you open a csv file with leading zeros in some rows (say, from ZIP codes or SSNs), they won't be displayed in Excel. Then, when you save it, even without editing it, all the leading zeros will be gone.

It changes date formats. Save a csv file with a date in it in the format YYYY-MM-DD. Open in Excel: it's displayed in MM/DD/YYYY. Hit Ctrl-S. Re-open the file in a text editor and you'll see that the file has changed.

It also doesn't preserve quotes correctly in csvs.

Besides all this, there are many other stupid terrible things about it, like changing behavior based on scroll lock (can you think of one other program that does this?), making it impossible to look at many tall rows using the mouse scroll wheel, etc.

Excel is easily one of Microsoft's most egregious offenses in the world of software.

0 comments

phonon10y ago

>In addition, it is completely useless for handling any type of delimited file. By default it supports csv. If you want to view a pipe-delimited file, you have to dig into the language settings of Windows, change the default delimiter, and open the file. Then, you cannot edit comma-separated files without changing it back first. So, there's no way to convert one to the other. Same problem with tab delimiters.

Totally wrong, Excel has the ability to import using Data -> From Text that opens a wizard that will step you through opening any type of delimited file, formatting columns, header rows, etc.

nannyOP10y ago

That doesn't help you edit the file, though. It only helps you convert it to an Excel file. You still can't save as anything other than comma-separated without changing the language settings.

phonon10y ago

First, you're wrong again, you can also save as tab delimited text or just text. Also, Access has some more Excel export options. http://superuser.com/a/107124

Secondly, Excel is not designed for round trip editing in plain text formats. You shouldn't use Word as a text editor either :-)

There are specialized editors if you want to directly edit a csv file etc. I use them sometimes. That's not what Excel is for.

maratd10y ago

The purpose of software isn't to be correct or even predictable. It's to satisfy the needs of the user. The user in this case, isn't you. It's corporate clients who make decisions for tens of thousands of employees. They have various needs, however esoteric and strange. I promise you that all of the behavior you cited was implemented at the request of a client.

Ideally Microsoft should craft custom versions for specific clients, but that is its own nightmare. They tried that with Windows and it didn't go too well.

tamana10y ago

When I am doing multi million dollar financial models, I like correct and predictable.

nannyOP10y ago

I use Excel nearly every day at work. How am I not the user? My company has needs too, one of which is correctly editing spreadsheets and delimited files. Excel is insufficient for this.

lawpoop10y ago

OP probably should have said _purchaser_.

thedevil10y ago

For the 14 years during which I used excel daily, the first 4 items you listed didn't affect me and the last two never mattered. I used text-to-columns to very nicely parse pipe-delimited files. The leading zeros issue I bumped into several times and was a minor irritation to fix.

nannyOP10y ago

>I used text-to-columns to very nicely parse pipe-delimited files.

Sure, but you still can't edit it and save it without losing data. I use Excel nearly every day as well, and I get more and more frustrated the more I use it. My coworkers hate it as well. Just because you haven't personally experienced any problems doesn't mean they don't exist.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 pointsnanny10y ago0 comments

Are you serious? Excel is complete and utter trash. Check out some "quirks" from the Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Excel#Quirks.

Some of the worst ones:

* Microsoft Excel will not open two documents with the same name and instead will display an error

* Can't handle dates before 1900

It also doesn't preserve quotes correctly in csvs.

Excel is easily one of Microsoft's most egregious offenses in the world of software.

0 comments

phonon10y ago

Totally wrong, Excel has the ability to import using Data -> From Text that opens a wizard that will step you through opening any type of delimited file, formatting columns, header rows, etc.

nannyOP10y ago

That doesn't help you edit the file, though. It only helps you convert it to an Excel file. You still can't save as anything other than comma-separated without changing the language settings.

phonon10y ago

First, you're wrong again, you can also save as tab delimited text or just text. Also, Access has some more Excel export options. http://superuser.com/a/107124

Secondly, Excel is not designed for round trip editing in plain text formats. You shouldn't use Word as a text editor either :-)

There are specialized editors if you want to directly edit a csv file etc. I use them sometimes. That's not what Excel is for.

maratd10y ago

Ideally Microsoft should craft custom versions for specific clients, but that is its own nightmare. They tried that with Windows and it didn't go too well.

tamana10y ago

When I am doing multi million dollar financial models, I like correct and predictable.

nannyOP10y ago

I use Excel nearly every day at work. How am I not the user? My company has needs too, one of which is correctly editing spreadsheets and delimited files. Excel is insufficient for this.

lawpoop10y ago

OP probably should have said _purchaser_.

thedevil10y ago

nannyOP10y ago

>I used text-to-columns to very nicely parse pipe-delimited files.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse