# Preventing Undesired Format Conversion in CellValueFormat

## Environment

| Version     | Product             | Author                                                                          |
| ----------- | ------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| 2025.4.1104 | RadSpreadProcessing | [Desislava Yordanova](https://www.telerik.com/blogs/author/desislava-yordanova) |

## Description

When using the `CellValueFormat` in RadSpreadProcessing, format strings may experience an undesired exchange of symbols, such as `,` to `.` and `.` to `,`.

```csharp
    CellValueFormat textFormat = new CellValueFormat("[$-de-DE,101]#.##0,00;-#.##0,00"); 
    CellSelection cellSelectionA1 = worksheet.Cells[new CellIndex(0, 0)]; 
    cellSelectionA1.SetValue(1234.56789); 
    cellSelectionA1.SetFormat(textFormat);
    CellSelection cellSelectionA1 = worksheet.Cells[new CellIndex(0, 0)]; 
    CellValueFormat cellSelectioA1Format = cellSelectionA1.GetFormat().Value;
```

The returned Value is:

<pre>[$-de-DE,101]#,##0.00;-#,##0.00</pre>

The **,** and **.** are exchanged. For better visualization:

Input:

<pre>[$-de-DE,101]#.##0,00;-#.##0,00</pre>

Output:

<pre>[$-de-DE,101]#,##0.00;-#,##0.00</pre>

You can see that **0,00** has been changed to **0.00** and **#.##** has been changed to **#,##**.

This happens because of culture settings. For instance, the German culture (`de-DE`) uses a comma as the decimal separator and a period as the group separator. The English culture (`en-US`) reverses these separators, which can lead to a different output format.

This knowledge base article also answers the following questions:

* How to prevent undesired format conversion in Telerik Spreadsheet?
* How to set custom culture settings for CellValueFormat?
* How to retain original format string in CellValueFormat?

## Solution

To prevent undesired format symbol exchanges, explicitly set the desired culture in your application by using the [SpreadsheetCultureHelper](https://www.telerik.com/document-processing-libraries/documentation/libraries/radspreadprocessing/features/setting-the-culture). Follow these steps:

1. Import the required namespaces:
   ```csharp
   using System.Globalization;
   using Telerik.Windows.Documents.Spreadsheet.Formatting;
   ```

2. Set the desired culture by creating a new `SpreadsheetCultureHelper` instance:

   ```csharp
   FormatHelper.CultureHelper = new SpreadsheetCultureHelper(new CultureInfo("de-DE"));
   ```

   Replace `"de-DE"` with the appropriate culture code for your scenario.

3. Apply the culture settings before working with the `CellValueFormat` and related operations.

This approach ensures consistent handling of format strings regardless of the user's default culture settings.

## See Also

* [Number Formats in Telerik Document Processing](https://www.telerik.com/document-processing-libraries/documentation/libraries/radspreadprocessing/features/number-formats)
* [Setting the Culture for Telerik Spreadsheet](https://www.telerik.com/document-processing-libraries/documentation/libraries/radspreadprocessing/features/setting-the-culture)