CSV - preventing autoformatting

  • Thread starter Thread starter Rohan Khan
  • Start date Start date
R

Rohan Khan

I have a csv! file with the number 90E0014 as one of the
fields. Opening it in excel causes it to be displayed as
9.00E+15 though. I don't want this to happen.

Actually, there's many numbers that have the E in it
that's displayed that way in this csv file.
I've tried putting quotes (") around each field,
but this doesn't help.

Same concept applies with dates - ie. if you enter 1/02 -
it's displayed as 2nd January

How do I get this to NOT automatically change the contents
when displaying it in excel.
Remember, this is a csv file, not a workbook - this does
not store formatting info. I think the solution lies in a
setting in excel, but where.

Please help
 
Not much you can do about this because "It is a Microsoft feature, not a
bug" <<grin>>.

1. The numbers with E should show correctly if you widen the column.

2. The settings are taken from the windows Global settings for the
country as set up during installation or in Control Panel - in this
case it looks like you are using the American settings which are the
default ones.
 
Possible solution for you:

Change the file extension to .txt instead of .csv
Open the file from within Excel
This should start the Text Import Wizard
Select Delimited then Next
Tick the comma then Next
For each column specify text
Click Finish

Of course, if you have a large number of columns within
your data then this technique will be very time consuming!
 
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