Excel changes the value of a cell to a DATE!!!!

[Guest]

We have a text document (.txt file) a client sent us with a listing of
coordinates X, Y, Z. We also have a last column that identifies the type of
point to analyze. The text document is tab-delimited. I need to create a
Comma Delimited File (.csv) of the text document, so I thought I can use
Excel 2007 to do this:

1) Open Excel 2007
2) File > Open
3) Select the text document
4) Text Wizard Import opens and I select Delimited > Next > Delimeters: Tab

Next > Column Data Format: General > Finish.

5) So far, Excel has done a wonderful job of separating my data on each
cell. I now select Save As and choose the CSV format.

PROBLEM IS:

The ID column for each coordinate has the following format: ##-#, and Excel
changes that content to a DATE! For example: "02-1" becomes "1-Feb". How can
I "teach" Excel to avoid doing that?????

 

[Guest]

Tell the Text Wizard that the ID column is Text, not General.

You would have gotten a much faster response in a more appropriate forum
such as "General Questions" (misc). The topic of this newsgroup is things
that cause Excel to crash (which this doesn't). Since Excel rarely crashes,
this forum is not widely read.

Jerry