On: One in five genetics papers contains errors thanks...

[bluedino]

Missing checkbox. "Assume Everything Is A String"

We used to hit all kinds of Excel weirdness with inventory etc.

It was our fault that our part numbers could look like this:

00010190-95.020

[alexlll862 → bluedino]

That feature already exists. It's technically not a "checkbox", but you can set a cell (or all of them) as string type in like 3 clicks.

[epistasis → alexlll862]

The problem was that you could not import the data without it being destroyed. By the time you could see it in Excel, the conversion had already been completed, without a way to get text.

[Arrath → alexlll862]

Still, an easy footgun to stumble into if you weren't mindful when setting up your spreadsheet