Microsoft fixes the Excel function that was wrecking scientific information

In 2020, scientists determined simply to remodel the alphanumeric symbols they used to symbolize genes quite than attempt to take care of an Excel function that was decoding their names as dates and (un)helpfully reformatting them robotically. Yesterday, a member of the Excel team posted that the corporate is rolling out an replace on Windows and macOS to repair that.

Excel’s automated conversions are supposed to make it simpler and sooner to enter sure kinds of generally entered information — numbers and dates, for example. But for scientists utilizing fast shorthand to make issues legible, it may smash printed, peer-reviewed information, as a 2016 study found.

Microsoft detailed the update in a weblog submit this week, including a checkbox labeled “Convert continuous letters and numbers to a date.” You can most likely guess what that toggles. The replace builds on the Automatic Data Conversions settings the corporate added final yr, which included the choice for Excel to warn you when it’s about to get additional 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, equivalent to that Excel avoids the conversion by saving the information as textual content, which implies the information could not work for calculations later. There’s additionally a identified problem the place you possibly can’t disable the conversions when working macros.