Numbers imported > then 15 digits

[Jim May]

I'm importing data and one of my columns is 20 digit
numbers, which can be text for my purposes. Excel is
by default displaying them as (sample) 4.20043E+14
when the cell contains 420042784980703. I'de
like to select th range of these cells and run a macro to
convert them to text (display) as 420042784980703.
If I manually press each on with the F2 key (entering edit
mode) then simply pressing the enter key does it, But I
have maybe 500 of these cells.
How can I do this quickly?
Tks In Advance..

 

[Dave Peterson]

If you're importing via File|open (or data|import external data), make sure you
treat that field as text in the text to columns wizard.

If you import the value as general (as a number), then those last 5 digits will
be gone forever. xl only keeps track of 15 significant digits.

 

[JMay]

Thanks Dave,
No, the problem is I'm doing a copy and paste from our Bank's Web-Based
InfoFile of our data.
So after the Paste I have the 4.20043E+14 in Column D (row 5 thru 500).
Any ideas?

 

[Dave Peterson]

If it's just one cell's worth, try typing an apostrophe and then pasting into
the formula bar.

You could format the cell as text first then paste, too.