this post was submitted on 21 Oct 2023
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Excel is inherently flawed in its design.
The thing is, that excel already has half the means of what would be necessary to really fix this bug. That is a field for each cell where the original text can stay.
An excel sheet is just a bunch of XML files zipped in a specific structure. You can unpack a file and look for yourself.
Each worksheet is it's own file and each cell is subdivided into the value and the formula, that generated this value (or nothing, if there is no formula).
Excel could easily fix this issue by adding another possible cell attribute like "original" or "plain" that, when set, allows you to roll back any conversion.
But no, they go a half assed way as always and screw up even more.
In order to do that I think they would first have to ratify a standards change to the Excel format, which is open.
Uh, I mean kinda...
Excel implements two Microsoft file format standards:
Those are not the same and even incompatible in parts. It is correct, that Microsoft tries to use ISO 29500 more, but most files (2007) still are ECMA-376.
But yes, they kinda would have to change their shitty, ISO-incompatible ISO "standard" to fix this issue this way.
Or use the formula field, idk. 😅