HEX2OCT Function (LibreOffice Calc)

HEX2OCT converts a signed hexadecimal value into an octal text string. For example, =HEX2OCT("6A";4) returns 0152: hexadecimal 6A means decimal 106, or octal 152, padded to four characters. Its optional second argument specifies the minimum output width for nonnegative values, not the number base. This is an engineering / analysis add-in function. LibreOffice Help — analysis functions (checked 2026-10-11; section HEX2OCT).

HEX2OCT(Number [; Places])

Number — Required. Hexadecimal text consisting of 0–9 and A–F, up to 10 hexadecimal characters. Upper/lowercase are interchangeable in the native examples. A cell containing a text code is recommended to preserve leading zeroes. This is a signed, 40-bit two’s-complement input; the octal result has a tighter 30-bit signed range.

Places — Optional. Requested minimum number of octal characters for nonnegative results. Omitted: no unnecessary leading zeros. Insufficient, zero or negative width produced Err:502 in tested Calc 25.2. For a negative value, width was ignored and 10 octal digits were returned.

Separators and regional settings: In the English-language Calc environment tested, function arguments are separated with ;, as in =HEX2OCT("F";3). Excel and many Google Sheets locales use commas instead. Decimal notation also depends on locale; examples assume English (.) numeric punctuation. Places is not a base argument. A fractional width of 3.9 was truncated to 3 by Calc 25.2 in one native test; use whole-number widths for portable formulas.

Version scope: Syntax and examples were checked against the currently served LibreOffice 26.8 Help and executed in Calc 25.2.3.2 on 2026-10-11 (the included test workbook). The exact original introduction version, alternative UI-localized function names, and runtime behaviour in LibreOffice 26.8 were not independently tested. The ODS test workbook stores formulas with the of:=HEX2OCT(...) OpenFormula prefix; this is an observed serialization, not a claim about all file formats.

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To reproduce the cell-reference example: enter 6A as text in A2 (format cell as Text first, or type an initial apostrophe). In B2 enter:

=HEX2OCT(A2;4)

The expected and observed B2 result is 0152 (text). You can fill the formula down beside a column of hexadecimal source codes. Do not multiply the resulting 0152 by 8 or treat it as decimal 152.

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Expected results in B2:B4: 0152, 0377, 0000 (these three outputs follow directly from native-tested individual formulas; the fill-down table as laid out above was not separately asserted). This can help when joining older octal-only data exports to hexadecimal register dumps; carry both the source code and the converted code in separate columns. For error isolation, =IFERROR(HEX2OCT("G1");"Invalid hex") was natively tested and returned Invalid hex.

Hexadecimal source values use up to 40 bits, but octal conversion is restricted to the signed 30-bit result. The source code 1FFFFFFF converts to the greatest accepted positive result, 3777777777; FFE0000000 converts to the minimum signed result, 4000000000. These boundary formulas both passed native tests. Conversely, =HEX2OCT("20000000") and =HEX2OCT("FFDFFFFFFF") produced Err:502 in Calc 25.2 even though both inputs consist only of legal hexadecimal digits. Do not confuse valid characters with a convertible numeric range. Microsoft and Google document the corresponding positive/negative range for their implementations too.

To compare numbers arithmetically, convert the octal string back to decimal, rather than comparing its characters. For instance:

=OCT2DEC(HEX2OCT("6A"))

Expected and observed numeric result: 106. This round-trip test was executed natively. Another tested end-to-end conversion is =HEX2OCT(DEC2HEX(-100)), returning ten-character text 7777777634.

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Unexpected behaviour observed: Numeric literal 199 was treated as hexadecimal characters by HEX2OCT(199) and returned text 631 (hex 199 = decimal 409 = octal 631). Do not assume the literal is already a decimal integer to be converted. Prefer "199" or text-formatted cell inputs. Invalid-input outcomes above are native observations in Calc 25.2.3.2, not predictions for every program/version.

• LibreOffice Calc: The current Help lists HEX2OCT among analysis add-in functions; the examples and boundary cases noted above were natively executed in 25.2.3.2.
• Microsoft Excel: Its HEX2OCT help documents HEX2OCT(number, [places]), 10-character signed input, leading-zero padding and #NUM! for several invalid numeric inputs. Excel was not executed during this run.
• Google Sheets: Its HEX2OCT help documents the corresponding signed conversion and warns that treating the octal output as an ordinary decimal numeral can mislead arithmetic. Sheets was not executed.
• Other spreadsheet engines: Not verified. Do not assume the same function exists or has identical error codes.

This is distinct from DEC2OCT, which takes a decimal input rather than a hexadecimal string; HEX2DEC produces an ordinary numeric result; and OCT2HEX reverses the code conversion. Saved ODS tests are included in the separate review package, but compatibility on XLSX import/export has not been tested.

• HEX2DEC — return a decimal number from hexadecimal.
• HEX2BIN — return binary text from hexadecimal.
• OCT2DEC — interpret octal text as decimal.
• OCT2HEX — reverse octal text into hexadecimal.
• DEC2OCT — start with decimal rather than hexadecimal.
• DEC2HEX — decimal to hexadecimal.

1. LibreOffice 26.8 Help — Analysis functions Part One, HEX2OCT section, accessed 2026-10-11: function purpose, official argument order, 10-character hexadecimal input, signed two’s-complement support, optional Places, worked 6a example. The Help page labels itself 26.8; Calc 26.8 runtime was not tested.
2. Microsoft Excel HEX2OCT reference, accessed 2026-10-11: 30-bit octal range restriction, optional width, application-specific error types.
3. Google Sheets HEX2OCT reference, accessed 2026-10-11: 40-bit input, 30-bit signed octal range, text/arithmetic warning.
4. Native test record: research/native-results.json and the saved research/LibreOffice_HEX_Conversion_Tests.ods from this batch; cases with names prefixed oct_ and matching error observations were executed in LibreOffice Calc 25.2.3.2 through UNO. The test script is research/run_native.py; no formulas were run in Excel or Sheets. The earlier test log is retained with the release audit.

Selected example formulas were run in LibreOffice Calc 25.2.3.2 on Linux on October 12, 2026. The official Help may cover a newer version. Tests of selected formulas do not certify every locale, interactive array operation or file round trip. View the example-check record.

Official HEX2OCT reference · Editorial standards