[Evolution] Mass edit in calc field - help!

[Brewster Gillett <bg fdi us>]

OOo 3.2 under Ubuntu 10.04

Here's that dadblasted now-you-see-it-now-you-don't "text indicator"
(I seem to recall that's what someone once called it) that I have got
to eradicate. Since there are 678 rows in this file, I am not eager
to perform the operation individually on each row.

Here's what I have. 678-row Calc file, names & addresses and some
additional information. One of those is a column for "date on list".
Unfortunately the way I get the file, as a CSV, those entries are
not formatted specifically as dates, even though they all follow a
common format of MM/DD/YYYY. I note that each entry is preceded *in the
edit window*, but *not* in the cell itself, by a single quote. I believe
this single quote is a forced text format identifier of some sort. 

I have highlighted that column and

(1) tried "FORMAT CELLS" to force it to "DATE" format - no luck

(2) invoked Search and Replace to replace the single quote with null 
    - also no luck - S&R can't *see* the danged single quote, 
    from all appearances.

I have performed both of the above attempts on the file when in its
original .CSV format, and also in its versions that have been saved as
.ODS files.

So how do I get this column to reflect the date format, so that it can
be sorted by date? I'll be damned if I'm gonna go in and fiddle the edit
window 678 times!

Help!


Thanks,


Brewster

 
-- 
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Embrace a sharing community of sustainable justice low-carbon diversity
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W. Brewster Gillett             bg fdi us            Portland, OR  USA
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Simply because you don't like to hear it, that doesn't make it untrue.
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