4 ms·

I must admit, of all the stories I’ve heard about Excel spreadsheets being “this one goes up to eleven” in their complexity, “too many fonts” is a new one. Per

I must admit, of all the stories I’ve heard about Excel spreadsheets being “this one goes up to eleven” in their complexity, “too many fonts” is a new one. Perhaps you could use an alternative differentiator for your data presentation? I’m morbidly curious to hear more about this scenario.

CogitoCogito 2y ago
To add my own anecdote, I've needed to use a lot of spreadsheets the last couple weeks and quickly became annoyed that different cells could have different fonts (which would sometimes happen when I was pasting in data). Of course I quickly learned to just paste in everything unformatted, but I thought to myself "why would anyone want to set fonts per cell?" I guess I just don't get out enough.
- SoftTalker 2y ago
  The "paste with styles" default is one of the worst things ever IMO. It's almost never what I want.
  - andersa 2y ago
    I hate it so much... some programs are even worse, they don't take ctrl shift v to get rid of the garbage. I've made it a habit to first paste stuff in a text editor, copy it again, and then paste it into programs like outlook so the formatting won't be all messed up... Still don't know of a single case where the "feature" was useful.
    - ddingus 2y ago
      PowerPoint Paste with source formatting or theme, I can't recall the exact name right now, rules. It means being able to mooch slides from any file and use them with no real fuss. An alternative is to turn the slide into a bitmap.
      - SoftTalker 2y ago
        I get that there are a few cases where it's useful. Make those require "ALT-SHIFT' or whatever. Make normal paste insert just the text.
        ddingus 2y ago
        Yep. I agree! Sorry, it just popped out. Your primary point is solid. Seconded.
    - leni536 2y ago
      Fortunately Teams takes ctrl shift v, and it also leaves links untouched. Unfortunately it's rather easy to mistype it as ctrl shift c, which --as you might have guessed-- is "call everyone".
      - lostlogin 2y ago
        Amazing.
    - cartoonfoxes 2y ago
      Try the "Paste as plain text" tool in PowerToys - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/advanced-paste https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/advanced....
- intended 2y ago
  I think you are in good company. I’ve used excel extensively, and I’ve never even conceived of that number of fonts specifically being needed. Let alone breaking excel on fonts.
- lostlogin 2y ago
  I’ve wondered about it for years; why is the ‘paste’ command not ‘paste without style’ by default? A system level option to change this would be a vast improvement. I’ve seen all sorts of gross workarounds. The URL bar is my go to these days, mainly because that works on mobile.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
ethbr1 2y ago
Not parent, but in my spreadsheets fonts map to certainty ranges. Serifs in increasing somberness for the most concrete numbers, sans for everyday estimates, and papyrus whenever I just toss random numbers in.
- skeeter2020 2y ago
  Could a human - in your scenario - differentiate the meaning between more than 8 fonts though?
  - pxc 2y ago
    When you've slowly built up a UI for your own purposes— whether the accretions are font faces or keybindings or context menu items— definitely! Picture a spreadsheet/convention that has evolved over the course of 6 years, seeing continuous use throughout that time. As someone with color discrimination problems and contrast difficulties, I would so much prefer font/style coding over color coding. Sounds great!
- zvr 2y ago
  Now, this is extremely interesting! I am not a fan of encoding information in the presentation layer and I would use an extra column to show the "certainty" explicitly, but using different fonts in addition is an excellent idea. Many thanks for this! Even in this case, though, I doubt you would go over the threshold of 8 fonts that was mentioned.

CogitoCogito 2y ago

To add my own anecdote, I've needed to use a lot of spreadsheets the last couple weeks and quickly became annoyed that different cells could have different fonts (which would sometimes happen when I was pasting in data). Of course I quickly learned to just paste in everything unformatted, but I thought to myself "why would anyone want to set fonts per cell?" I guess I just don't get out enough.

SoftTalker 2y ago
The "paste with styles" default is one of the worst things ever IMO. It's almost never what I want.
- andersa 2y ago
  I hate it so much... some programs are even worse, they don't take ctrl shift v to get rid of the garbage. I've made it a habit to first paste stuff in a text editor, copy it again, and then paste it into programs like outlook so the formatting won't be all messed up... Still don't know of a single case where the "feature" was useful.
  - ddingus 2y ago
    PowerPoint Paste with source formatting or theme, I can't recall the exact name right now, rules. It means being able to mooch slides from any file and use them with no real fuss. An alternative is to turn the slide into a bitmap.
    - SoftTalker 2y ago
      I get that there are a few cases where it's useful. Make those require "ALT-SHIFT' or whatever. Make normal paste insert just the text.
      - ddingus 2y ago
        Yep. I agree! Sorry, it just popped out. Your primary point is solid. Seconded.
  - leni536 2y ago
    Fortunately Teams takes ctrl shift v, and it also leaves links untouched. Unfortunately it's rather easy to mistype it as ctrl shift c, which --as you might have guessed-- is "call everyone".
    - lostlogin 2y ago
      Amazing.
  - cartoonfoxes 2y ago
    Try the "Paste as plain text" tool in PowerToys - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/advanced-paste https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/advanced....
intended 2y ago
I think you are in good company. I’ve used excel extensively, and I’ve never even conceived of that number of fonts specifically being needed. Let alone breaking excel on fonts.
lostlogin 2y ago
I’ve wondered about it for years; why is the ‘paste’ command not ‘paste without style’ by default? A system level option to change this would be a vast improvement. I’ve seen all sorts of gross workarounds. The URL bar is my go to these days, mainly because that works on mobile.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

ethbr1 2y ago

Not parent, but in my spreadsheets fonts map to certainty ranges. Serifs in increasing somberness for the most concrete numbers, sans for everyday estimates, and papyrus whenever I just toss random numbers in.

skeeter2020 2y ago
Could a human - in your scenario - differentiate the meaning between more than 8 fonts though?
- pxc 2y ago
  When you've slowly built up a UI for your own purposes— whether the accretions are font faces or keybindings or context menu items— definitely! Picture a spreadsheet/convention that has evolved over the course of 6 years, seeing continuous use throughout that time. As someone with color discrimination problems and contrast difficulties, I would so much prefer font/style coding over color coding. Sounds great!
zvr 2y ago
Now, this is extremely interesting! I am not a fan of encoding information in the presentation layer and I would use an extra column to show the "certainty" explicitly, but using different fonts in addition is an excellent idea. Many thanks for this! Even in this case, though, I doubt you would go over the threshold of 8 fonts that was mentioned.