Libre Office 4.1.3.2: Import dates from text file, recognize right format

Question

I am struggling with the different cell formatting types in Libre Office - I am aware of the manually adjustable Date formatting, but cant get Libre Office to recognise an input text string like:

" Wednesday, December 11, 2013   13:27"

where everything between the quotes is the cell content. Obviously I want the software to recognize, that this is a date and thus make a graph out of a large table, but using a manual formatter like:

" NNNN, MMMM D, YYYY HH:MM"

does not result in what I want, ie. the cell accepts my manual format but still cant cope with the content. What am I doing wrong? - any tips how I can nevertheless produce a graph with x-values with dates in this format? I dont want to awk around and manually convert these strings each time I have such a table...

Thanks a lot!

Answer 1

Be aware that during the import process you have a chance to set the date format during this import routine in Librecalc. Find this and use it.

Answer 2

I found that the fix must come while opening a CSV file to avoid being down the rabbit hole of errors and frustrations.

The preview of data on open is interactive. Who knew? :o

Do this:

1. Open
2. Select columns with dates in the preview
3. Change setting from Standard to Date in the dropdown