CSV-Retain Leading Zeros

[GG]

How can I retain leading zeros in a spreadsheet saved
as .csv
I remember being able to do it in the past...seems like
the newer version of excel doesn't allow it.

 

[Myrna Larson]

As a CSV file you probably can't. Even if you make the column Text, on import Excel will
reinterpret as a number and discard leading 0's. The solutions are to (1) save as a Text file
(extension .txt) and use the Import Text Wizard to specify the column as text, or (2) reformat
the column after importing the CSV.

 

[Dave Peterson]

I think you lose the leading zeroes when you re-import the file into excel.

Open up a fresh .csv file in Notepad and check it out.

If you have to retain the leading 0's in excel, you could rename the *.csv to
*.txt and get the text import wizard to pop up.

You can specify that field as Text.

(or you could import the file as *.csv and just format the column to show the
leading 0's.)

 

[Guest]

This issue is from getting data in spreadsheet form, then
saving as CSV and FTPing to our UNIX system to load into
Oracle tables.
I typically define my input data as comma delimited and
so CSV used to be fine for this.
Perhaps I need to change my load scripts to recognize tab
rather than comma....dagnabit