CHAR in Collabora Office: Build Characters and Line Breaks from Numeric Codes

• Introduced: original Collabora release and launch date are not established by the sources reviewed.
• Availability: documented in Collabora Office 26.04 help, scoped to the desktop-help release.
• Platform scope: online and mobile deployments are not inferred from desktop documentation.
• Checked: October 14, 2026. Direct function documentation and independently modeled text controls; no native Collabora test was performed.

=CHAR(number)

The dedicated reference specifies 1 through 255 for the code value. Use whole numbers in these examples. Its opening summary mentions two- or three-digit numbers, but the explicit argument definition includes one-digit codes too; the worked controls follow that stated range.

The character mapping is not a universal Unicode-code-point interface. Collabora specifically warns that values above 127 can depend on the system’s active mapping. Do not assume a higher code will display the same symbol in every deployment or after conversion to another spreadsheet product.

Enter the numeric values 65, 66, 67, 100 in A2:A5. Fill =CHAR(A2) down in B2:B5. Under the ordinary Latin mapping illustrated by the vendor examples, the expected characters are A, B, C, d.

To construct a complete label without changing those inputs:

=CHAR(65)&CHAR(66)&CHAR(67)&"-"&"07"

Expected text: ABC-07. The suffix is deliberately text so its leading zero is explicit. CHAR supplies characters, not a numeric format or a general identifier generator.

Put ="North"&CHAR(10)&"Team" in a blank cell. The resulting string contains North, one newline character, then Team. Whether the sheet displays two visible lines also depends on its wrapping and row-height settings; the character’s presence and the visual layout are separate questions.

A length control is:

=LEN("North"&CHAR(10)&"Team")

Expected result: 10. Five letters, one newline and four letters contribute to the total. The newline is not an ordinary space, even when a copied rendering makes the separation difficult to see.

If B2 holds that two-line text, a deliberate flattened version is:

=SUBSTITUTE(B2;CHAR(10);" / ")

Expected text: North / Team, with length 12. The replacement consists of three characters, so the length increases by two. SUBSTITUTE changes the identified delimiter rather than deleting an arbitrary set of invisible characters.

This is useful when a downstream file needs one visible separator. Keep the original value alongside the transformed value until the receiving workflow has been checked.

For the controlled code 100, =CODE(CHAR(100)) is expected to return 100. CODE reads the code of the first character only. Such a round trip checks the chosen mapping for one character; it does not identify the mapping of an entire imported file or certify every value above 127.

A control character may be present without a printable glyph. Do not judge success solely from the cell’s appearance. Use a length check and a known delimiter substitution when diagnosing a particular character.

These controls avoid out-of-range numbers and fractional codes. The short reference does not establish their complete native error or truncation behavior, so no error code is assigned here. Nor does the existence of CHAR authorize treating 160 as a portable nonbreaking-space rule on every system. Record the target environment when extended character codes matter.

• Collabora Office 26.04: CHAR.
• Editorial testing standards.

The dedicated Collabora function page was reviewed. Expected outputs are independently modeled text controls, not captured results from the application. Extended-character, coercion and deployment-specific behavior retain the limits stated above.