I am English. I write dates in the dd/mm/yyyy format.

I tried to enter two consecutive Sundays (03/01/10 and 10/01/10) in to the Open Office Spreadsheet, and then propagate more dates by dragging the box down the column. The dates I got were odd. Then I realised that the system thought I was talking about 1st March and 1st October and was doing the best it could with that strange pair of dates.

Presumably, there is a setting somewhere to tell Linux (Fedora 10) that I want to write the day, then the month – and not the other way round. I could not see it.

Inside OpenOffice you need to go to Tools->Options expand Language Settings and click Languages. Change Locale setting to "English (UK)". You will need to reenter your dates though as as soon as you make the change, they will switch from the dates as OOo thinks you meant them to the English equivalent of those. I think you can also set the "LANG" environment variable to do the same thing, but am not sure what it would be set to or even if that would work.

HTH

Forrest

Many thanks forrestt,

I tried looking in Open Office but didn't have too much time and nothing leapt out at me.

i don't know the fedora, but usually programs get their locale settings from $LANG variable. locale -a will give you the list

I think it's actually under Format - Cells. Here you'll see options for setting up the date (specifically, format cells - numbers - category "date", and then choose how you wish them to be formatted.) I think the language settings/locales are for spell checks and for spelling within the application as a whole. My set up is a UK interface with a Canadian locale; hence, "centre" and "neighbour". However, even though this is the case, I could still have my dates formatted in American style (mm/dd/yyyy), international (yyyy/mm/dd) or Canadian (dd/mm/yyyy) if I so choose. Or, other date options, regardless of the locale, are also available (such as having the month written out, etc.)