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Thousands separator is changed from dot to comma

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Posted on by Pasta40

Hi there,

I am scraping revenue data from a website that comes in different formats. The problem is that if I have a number like 200.000 (dot) PAD changes it to 200,000 (comma). If that number is than written to my list I get 200.

For numbers over 1 million I don't have that problem, so I can't just multiply by 1000.

Even if I only set a variable as 200.000, PAD directly shows it as 200,000 in the overview (see attached picture: detail view shows 200.000, overview shows 200,000).

I have already checked my system language but it is set to German and uses a dot as the thousands separator.

Does anyone know how to solve this problem?

Thanks in advance for your help!

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Power Automate Desktop

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VJR 7,635 on at

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Any other situation where I can re-create this scenario?

For me it's showing up the same.

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Pasta40 14 on at

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That's very interesting, thanks for checking this!

No, this is exactly the scenario I am talking about - not knowing the source problem I don't know how to recreate it any other way. I have the hypothesis that it's the language/region settings. I will set my system language to English and try again. Will reply with the result!

Thanks again

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Pasta40 14 on at

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Okay, so I set my language to english (US) and now I also see the 200.000 instead of the 200,000.
However, when I write this value into an excel file, I still get 200.

Here is the code for a basic test of that:

Excel.LaunchExcel.LaunchUnderExistingProcess Visible: True Instance=> ExcelInstance
SET NewVar TO 200.000
SET NewVar2 TO $'''200.000.000'''
Excel.WriteToExcel.WriteCell Instance: ExcelInstance Value: NewVar Column: $'''A''' Row: 1
Excel.WriteToExcel.WriteCell Instance: ExcelInstance Value: NewVar2 Column: $'''A''' Row: 2

You can see that it correctly inserts the 2.000.000 but that we get 200 for the 200.000

Any ideas?

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Gidi 601 on at

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Hi,
seems that you have one variable type ‚text‘ and the other ‚number‘.
Please try to set to "200.00" for using as text and %200.00% as number.

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VJR 7,635 on at

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SET NewVar TO 200.000
SET NewVar2 TO $'''200.000.000'''

One has quotes around it and the other one doesn't so they are going to be treated as text and number respectively.

Even if I manually paste 200.000 into Excel it shows up as 200. This has been an Excel formatting "issue" since many years :). This gets corrected when we change the decimal number format of the cell to 3 digits after the data is written to the cell.

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Pasta40 14 on at

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Thank you for your help.

@VJR : If I change the decimal format to 3 digits I only get a two hundred with three zeros after the comma. The real value however is two hundred thousand. The quotes are added automatically by PAD, I have just entered the raw numbers. This shows me that PAD does somehow automatically puts these numbers in different brackets, which is probably the source of the problem.

@Gidi : I can convert the text to number, it becomes 200000 and works with excel! The problem is that it only works for single variables in the same format. As soon as the data is in a list with other data it doesnt work because of the different formats (e.g. of 2.000.000 and 200.000.)

So the core problem remains: The European thousands separator "." is recognized as a decimal separator for numbers under a million. So if I import the number 200.000 (two hundred thousand), PA makes it 200,000 (two hundred) BEFORE it imports it into Excel. However, it recognizes 2.000.000 as 2.000.000 and 2 as 2. Therefore the scraping data is unusable - it is impossible to know if 200 means 200 or 200.000.

I wish there was some setting to change the thousands separator recognition in PAD..

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VJR 7,635 on at

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Did you also check the decimal/thousand separator settings of Excel?

It is in the Advanced section of the Options menu.

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Pasta40 14 on at

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Thanks for the idea!
Yes, I've even tried to manually set them to "," for decimal values and "." for thousands. Unfortunately it didn't help. I think the problem is that PAD for some reason changes 200.000 to 200,000 so the error occurs before Excel.

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Gidi 601 on at

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How did you try to convert list? You would need to do it entry by entry as far as I know.

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VJR

7,635 on at

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Hi @Pasta40

Since there are lots of multiple posts with different scenarios can you summarise the issues so that it gives a single view and you can get help from anyone facing with a similar situation.

Something like this....This is just an example. Add your own instances.

Scenario	What is happening?	What should happen?	Any comments?
When extracted from web into a PAD datatable variable	Shows 200,000	Should show 200.000	Works fine when xxx
When PAD datatable variable is written onto Excel	Shows 200	Should show 200,000

When extracted from web into a PAD datatable variable	<more than million example here>
When PAD datatable variable is written onto Excel