From Christopher Lee
The Euro bug
(Feedback, 6 June) is no more than a minor irritation compared
with the decimal bug.
It seems to have escaped the attention of the powers that be that France and
Germany (among others) use the comma rather than the point as a decimal
separator.
Spreadsheets such as Excel don’t recognise numbers that aren’t in the format
defined in the operating system. Automatic editing/translating is nearly
impossible. Wordprocessing software is not immune to the bug either,
particularly when the decimal tab function is used.
The problem is that no one in authority has defined a decimal character or,
incidentally, one for separating thousands.
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