.csv file - zeroes disappear

[Guest]

I am creating a .csv file which includes bank account numbers. Some of them
include zeroes at the beginning but even if I format the column as text, the
zeroes keep disappearing.

Is there a way to keep the zeroes at the beginning of each cell?

I am on Windows XP Professional and running Excel 2003 SP2.

Thanks, Katherine

 

[Dave Peterson]

How are you checking for the leading 0's?

Are you opening the .csv file in NotePad?

Or are you reimporting the file into excel?

Try opening in NotePad to check.

 

[Guest]

I was opening it in Excel to verify.

Another thing that's happening is that sometimes if changes an account
number to include + signs. Example: account 1000400000000 shows as 1.00E+12

We load the .csv file into our system (to process credit card payments or
cheques) but it's showing the account numbers with characters (1.00E+12) as
invalid account numbers. How can this be resolved? It seems to be reading
the account number correctly even if the zeroes are missing.

Thanks, Katherine

 

[Dave Peterson]

But when you open it in Notepad everything is ok?

I'm not sure what your system is, but how do the credit card numbers show up
when you look at the data in NotePad?

If you're seeing the scientific notation format, then try reformatting the field
in excel.

Select the range
format|cells|Number tab|Number (0 decimals).

Be aware that if your credit card numbers ever have more than 15 digits, you're
going to have different trouble. Excel only keeps track of 15 significant
digits.

You can pre-format the cell as text and do your data entry--or you can start
each value with an apostrophe: '1234123412341234

In either case, your .csv file should look fine (in NotePad), but you'll have
trouble if you open the .csv file with excel.

If you ever have to open that .csv in excel, you can do this:
rename the file from .csv to .txt
Open excel
File|open
(Point at that .txt file)

You'll see the text to columns wizard popup. And you'll be able to specify that
the credit card field should be imported as Text.