Excel question

• 09/21/2017 at 10:12 AM #46772
  Despair

  I have a question regarding Excel. Yesterday I wanted to enter some commands I found in a (english) book but noticed they did not work. If I wrote commands like COUNTIF I got an error message. Excel expected this commands in swedish  (obviously because swedish windows is installed on the PC)!? I had to write ANTAL.OM instead. This felt extremely weird- who translates commands?!

  Anyway so Excel obviously expects commands in your country language. So I changed COUNTIF to ANTAL.OM but it still did not work. Then I figured out that swedish excel expects a semicolon where the english version has a comma. WTF?! How shall one work with this?

  But then I noticed if i download a spreadsheet from an english author who surely has not written the spreadsheet in swedish my excel converts it somehow because if I look I find swedish commands in the code?

  Can anybody tell me how I can deal with that? It would be great if I could make my Excel except also english commands when i type them but nt only from a file.

  

  Despair

  Blocked

  Topics: 97

  Replies: 1034

  Been thanked: 218 times
  09/21/2017 at 10:44 AM #46774
  Andre Vorster

  Have you tried to change the language option in Excel?

  From the menu-
  File  – options – language. Here you can add or change languages.

  Have a look at these websites with the English to Swedish translation for the various formulas. Hope it helps.

  http://www.piuha.fi/excel-function-name-translation/?page=svenska-english.html

  http://www.piuha.fi/excel-function-name-translation/index.php?page=english-swedish.html

  http://www.excelfunctions.eu/COUNTIF/English-Swedish

   

   

  

  Andre Vorster

  Participant

  Topics: 25

  Replies: 117

  Been thanked: 48 times
  09/21/2017 at 11:12 AM #46780
  Despair

  Thanks Andre that is some help but: I tried changing the language but it did not help. It only changes date format, currency and such stuff.

  The links you send are great BUT they ignore this strange change in syntax. For example:

  =COUNTIF(B2:B25,”Nancy”) is in swedish excel =ANTAL.OM(B2:B25;”Nancy”)  You see the semicolon after B25? This is really very annoying that one version wants a comma and another a semicolon. And this isn’t mentioned on the website you linked to. I’m really amazed about such problems with a program like excel which was around for ages.

  And why did microsoft this in the first place? There’s nothing like a swedish version of visual basic for example.

  

  Despair

  Blocked

  Topics: 97

  Replies: 1034

  Been thanked: 218 times
  09/21/2017 at 11:35 AM #46787
  Andre Vorster

  Uhhmm.. yes I see. Don’t know why Microsoft will do this.

  The other option is to use the normal “Insert function” wizard when creating formulas so it will automatically put in the correct symbols.

  You can also do the following (which I don’t think you will want to do) –
  Change your Microsoft office default language to English.
  Keyboard US layout.

  

  Andre Vorster

  Participant

  Topics: 25

  Replies: 117

  Been thanked: 48 times
  09/21/2017 at 11:42 AM #46789
  Despair

  I also tried changing the default language – same result. Only date format and such stuff changes.

  The only thing that makes me think there is a solution is that if I download a spreadsheet which is obviously not in swedish my excel translates it to swedish (so excel can do so). So there are english commands no problem but if I type in new commands it only accepts swedish.

  

  Despair

  Blocked

  Topics: 97

  Replies: 1034

  Been thanked: 218 times
  09/21/2017 at 12:18 PM #46799
  Andre Vorster

  Despair.

  Seems you need an English language pack for your Office.
  I don’t know which Office version you have so I send you options you can chose from.

  Here is list of Office Language packs and Language Accessory packs. Make your pick J
  https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Do-I-need-a-language-pack-Language-Accessory-Pack-LAP-or-a-Language-Interface-Pack-LIP-4548ec6b-6d0e-40aa-8780-7bbee9554e04?ui=en-US&rs=en-US&ad=US

  “Applies To: Excel 2016 Word 2016 Outlook 2016 PowerPoint 2016 OneNote 2016 Publisher 2016 Access 2016 Visio Standard 2016 Excel 2013 Word 2013 Outlook 2013 Publisher 2013 Access 2013 Visio 2013 InfoPath 2013 Excel 2010 Word 2010 Outlook 2010 PowerPoint 2010 Access 2010 OneNote 2010 Publisher 2010 Visio 2010 Project 2010 InfoPath 2010 Excel 2007 Word 2007 Outlook 2007 PowerPoint 2007 Access 2007 Publisher 2007 Visio 2007 OneNote 2007 Visio Professional 2013 Project Standard 2013 Project Professional 2013 Project Standard 2016 Visio Standard 2007 Project Standard 2010 Visio Standard 2010”

  Language Accessory Pack for Office
  https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Language-Accessory-Pack-for-Office-82ee1236-0f9a-45ee-9c72-05b026ee809f

   

  Just for interesting sake to change your office default language form one language to another and back again when needed.
  https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Choose-or-permanently-change-the-language-of-your-Office-installation-f5c54ff9-a6fa-4348-a43c-760e7ef148f8

   

  If none of these options work you might need to buy a language pack form Microsoft.

   

  

  Andre Vorster

  Participant

  Topics: 25

  Replies: 117

  Been thanked: 48 times
  09/21/2017 at 2:02 PM #46809
  Despair

  Thank you Andre. But I’m afraid changing the whole language of the PC is not good idea. It’s my wife Laptop I use and she would NOT like that hahaha. I personally use Mac but MS office on Mac is sooooo incompatible with the PC version that it is impossible  to work with it.

  I simply have to adapt to it (and this is OK). Thank you for all you help Andre!

  

  Despair

  Blocked

  Topics: 97

  Replies: 1034

  Been thanked: 218 times
  09/21/2017 at 2:20 PM #46814
  Andre Vorster

  Pleasure to help where I can.

  As another option, you can install Open office or Libre office. It’s free.
  Compatible with MS Office. Does not have all of the bells & whistles of MS Office but it does the job.
  Becuse it’s free you can always uninstall it again if it does not work for you and no money lost.

  https://www.openoffice.org/
  https://www.libreoffice.org/

  1 user thanked author for this post.

  Despair

  

  Andre Vorster

  Participant

  Topics: 25

  Replies: 117

  Been thanked: 48 times
• Author
  Posts