My friends in Europe (Italy and Hungary) are on a mission to collect some frequently used regional settings from different languages and versions of Excel.
I would like to support their effort by drawing your attention to this project. Excel comes in many different language versions. I only use the English version of Excel, but I have seen first hand how trivial differences between the versions can cause differences in how formulas work.
Complicating matters, we can change the regional settings of Windows - which adds another layer of nuanced differences. For example a common problem are the different separator characters - these are dependent on both the regional settings and the language and version of Excel too.
In most cases the average Excel user does not realize what is happening inside Excel, but as Excel developers we must keep in mind the challenges presented by these differences - especially when we are not 100% sure what local settings will be used by our end users.
I have already sent the English settings of my Excel 2010 and 2013. Now it is your turn - if you use a local-language version of Excel, please take a look at this post, where you can find how you can contribute to this important project - it takes just 3 minutes!
I am really interested to see the final collection and read the experiences collected!
Thank you!
If you liked this article, please share it!

Leave a comment