Auto rounding of large numbers

[GKW in GA]

Whenever I copy and paste a number from another application into a cell in
Excel and the number is larger than 15 digits (that appears to be the magic
size), it seems to round the number up and pad to the right with zeros.
Example, If I format the cell as numeric, and paste 6214008046176059 it
appears as 6.21401E+15. If I fomat it as text, it appears as
6214008046176060. Is there an easy way around this short of saving it as a
..txt file and then using TEXT TO COLUMNS when re-opening it

Another example, 1234567890987654321 appears as 1234567890987650000

 

[GKW in GA]

I mean to say this is in Excel 2003

 

[Tom Hutchins]

Excel only has 15 digits of precision. Generally, the advice given is to
enter the number as text: either precede the entry with a single quote (') or
pre-format the cell as text. You have to format the cell as text before
entering the large number; changing the format afterwards doesn't work
because the extra precision is already lost.

Hope this helps,

Hutch