Decimal places showing up as Commas, not Periods

[dawndanby]

I'm running Office:Mac 2004

For some reason, inputting '0.4' immediately resets to '0,4' (note the
comma) - as in France.
(This doesn't show up in any other applications, with the exception of
Intuit QuickBooks)

I've been running Office 2004 on this machine since it was released,
and I had no such problems until very recently.

I've tried:
- talking to Apple Service about recent updates to the OS. They
recommended...
- ...discarding preferences for Excel and Office and restarting. I've
done this several times This helped by making the calculations work.
When this first happened, I couldn't even calculate sums
- checking and re-checking the 'International' settings on the Mac,
which determine number and date formats. These are all set for the USA
- combing through the Preferences and 'Format' settings in Excel,
trying to find where I can reset things. I'm told that this is not
difficult in the PC version, but I can't find anything that works.

Any help or suggestions would be deeply appreciated!

- Caraway

 

[CyberTaz]

Hello Caraway -

AFAIK, the decimal format used by XL on both the PC & Mac is picked up from
the OS. There is no setting in the program to change that - at least not
accidentally, although it can probably be done with VBA or possibly with a
custom format or style.

The few things you don't mention having done;

Run Disk Utility's Repair Disk Permissions routine. You'd be surprised what
'issues' that alone can rectify.

Are OS X & Office fully updated with the most current updates?

Do you have any add-in programs that might (even remotely) be associated
with the problem?

If that doesn't help, select one of the problem cells, go to Format>Cells -
Number, report back what settings display in the dialog. I don't know that I
will have a solution, but I can probably find someone who does.

HTH |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[Caraway]

Bob,

Thanks so very much. I ran the Repair Disk Permissions routine, and it
fixed it! This is terrific.

(For what it's worth, I am working with updated versions of both Office
and OS X. And I'd messed with Format>Cells for ages without any luck.
Not sure what kind of add-in programs might have caused trouble.)

much much appreciated

Caraway

 

[CyberTaz]

Glad it resolved the issue, but it wasn't necessarily an add-in. If it was,
the problem may resurface. If it does, post back with as much detail as you
can.

For future reference, though, *any time* you install, update or remove
software Repair Disk Permissions should be used. It is also recommended that
it be run both *before* & *after* any updates to OS X.

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac