[sims] Import Negative Reading age (difference) into aspect

[coolhands]

I have an 'Age' aspect that goes from -99/11 to 99/11 used to indicate the difference of their reading age to real age.

 

but I can't import the negative values (from csv) it drops the minus symbol. does anyone know if this is possible? I can enter the negative values manually eg -0/2 indicating negative 2 months and the marksheet accepts them.

FYI to save others time. I have tried putting a leading space eg ' -0/2' it doesn't work. I have tried using quotes eg "-0/2" it doesn't work. I naturally have formatted cell as text but actually excel in that case converts the negative symbol into an equals and I can't seem to stop it.

 

I can't do it

 

I thought I came up with a solution! by inserting a 'tab' into the cell before for symbol so you would have ' -0/2' (the tab is 5 spaces. Incidentally I did this by using the formula =CONCAT(CHAR(9),A2) where A2 is the reading age. Then copy that formula as values to a new cell. Although it will appear the same if you click on it you will see the value offset to the right, ie it is tabbed to the right as a tab has no been inserted into the cell. This can solve some csv problems like this, I am reading. Anyway - it didn't work in sims! Still the negative symbol has been disappeared.

Edited October 17, 2022 by coolhands

[ee31ag]

> but actually excel in that case converts the negative symbol into an equals and I can't seem to stop it.

 

Can you force a "-" symbol by doing something like =IF(A1<0, "-"&ABS(A1), A1)

(A1 just being a sample cell for this example)