Interpretation of key of numeric keypad as decimal separator
Interpretation of key of numeric keypad as decimal separator
when using an AZERTY keyboard (BE or FR layout)
on AZERTY keyboards, a full stop (‘.’) is typed using the SHIFT key on the semicolon key (‘;’). That requires two fingers.
A simular situation for digits (shift).
on the numeric keypad, there is no shift for digits and there is a key with a full stop (‘.’), also without SHIFT (the same as the “Del” key).
Therefore, many people often use the numeric keypad for digits and full stop, instead of a SHIFT combination on the standard part of the keyboard.
For the full stop, this works for all applications except two: Excel and PowerPoint.
Why ? Because these two applications consider that the full stop key of the numeric keypad is the decimal separator.
Therefore, they do not use the keyboard layout for that key, but they use the character defined in the Windows local settings for the decimal separator.
Consequence: when the decimal separator in local settings is the comma (‘,’), typing on the full stop (‘.’) key of the numeric keypad results into a comma (‘,’), although this is not what’s drawn on the keyboard :-(
Last but not least: there are three options for the keyboard layout: Belgian-comma, Belgian-period, and Belgian-French (default one, which is like period). They change the behavior of the numeric keypad (you can choose between comma and full stop for the numerical keyboard).
It works in all applications except, Excel and PowerPoint!
In Excel, when entering a number, this can be, more or less, acceptable: it allows entering decimal numbers using the numerical keyboard only. That’s a common use case in Excel.
But, this behavior has been introduced in PowerPoint too, although PowerPoint is not an application dedicated to numbers. This is very annoying and actually perceived as a bug.
I (and many others) tried to find how to change this but didn’t succeed:
- Changing the locale setting for numbers is not acceptable. Indeed, the comma (‘,’) must remain the decimal separator when displaying numbers in applications (including Excel).
- There is no dedicated option in Excel nor in PowerPoint.
- I didn’t found any article in Google, except some who state that the locale setting is wrong (that’s a wrong answer - but the problem is specific too few language/keyboard combination, so that, except in a few countries, people are not aware of this strange behavior).
==>
OpenOffice & Libre have the option missing in MS-Office.
Works without any “IME pack”
- >> Tools > Options > Language Settings > Languages.
- Deselect the check box “Decimal separator key: Same as locale setting (,)”
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