Libre Office Version: 4.1.6.2
Build ID: 410m0(Build:2)
OpenSuse 13.1 x86_64
KDE 4.11.5
In LibreOffice Calc I have a link to external data working ok, its linked to an html file and it contains a column of currency values like 112.34 and 9.00 etc. They import ok but I need to have (for example) 9.00 and 85.10 show up in the spreadsheet as 9.00 and 85.10 and not just plain 9 and 85.1 . Format cells doesnt work, the format is erased whenever the link updates the sheet. Is there someway I can insert something into the html document to specify the format is 2 decimal places so my currency numbers show correctly in the spreadsheet? Or any other alternate solution?
Sorry, but I could not detect from your story if it is the HTML page that has the wrong format (and thus needs adaption) or if it is the spreadsheet column that shows the imported strings (that are correct) wrongly.
The numbers are correct in the html but show up wrong in the spreadsheet
for example:
<tr>
<td><font face=“Liberation Sans” Size=“2”>CVX</font></td><td><font face=“Liberation Sans” Size=“2”>111.00</font></td>
<tr>
Shows up as only 111 in the spreadsheet instead of 111.00
So it is the correct string in the HTML. You can not really do anything in the HTML thus.
It is the spreadsheet where you have to do something. I am not that good at that, but reading it as a string instead of a floating point value?
How do 9i read it as a string? I dont have any control over that. I can only specify the file to link to (as far as I can see anyway)
You suggested two places to do something: the HTML and the cell formatting.
Because I think I know something about HTML, I took that approach. You posted
<tr>
<td><font face="Liberation Sans" Size="2">CVX</font></td><td><font face="Liberation Sans" Size="2">111.00</font></td>
<tr>
(and isn’t it better readable when using HTML tags?)
My conclusion, not possible to do anything there, because it is already correct.
I did never what you tried in Libreoffice Calc. When I start it, I can see that I can Right Click on a column and then choose cell formatting. Then I can choose Valuta and then again I can choose a specific form. But when you say that that formatting is gone as soon as you load the values, I do believe you and have not enough experience with Calc to help you. Only suggestion was to use Text instead of Valuta, but that may not what you want and it will be lost also on loading I assume.
Maybe wait for some Calc guru. 
I’m posting this question over on the Libre Office site, maybe someone there will have a suggestion, if I find an answer I’ll post it here.
I think that is a good idea, more LibreOffice gurus over there.
And thank in advance you for posting back here or the benefit of others.
It appears the only way to do this is to setup the “link to external data” to load the data on a spare sheet in your workbook and then copy the data over to the working sheet. I can see that working, but I cant figure out how to setup two things: 1 copy the block of data over to the new sheet and 2: do it on some kind of repeating time schedule
Seems like #1 is to use a named range then set the destination cell to =(rangeName) but that doesnt work, must be something like that tho. #2 is a mystery, maybe it isnt possible although even if i had to press F9 or shift-F9 to update the data that would be acceptable