Saving XLS to CSV

[Guest]

I am trying to save an xls spreadsheet to a .csv file.

I have formatted one of my columns as text.

When I save the file as xls the data stays in tact.

When I save the file as csv that column changes values to exponential.

What am I doing wrong?

Thanks

 

[David Biddulph]

I am trying to save an xls spreadsheet to a .csv file.

I have formatted one of my columns as text.

When I save the file as xls the data stays in tact.

When I save the file as csv that column changes values to exponential.

What am I doing wrong?

Have you looked at the CSV file (with notepad or something, rather than
Excel)?

My guess is that the CSV file is OK, but that when you try to reimport it to
Excel it is choosing is own format. You may even find that it's just the
column width when you re-open it that's causing the problem; if it isn't
wide enough for the number of digits it might well change to exponential.
In some cases you may find that you've got more flexibility if you rename it
from a .csv to a .txt and open it from within Excel; the wizard gives some
control which you may not have if you just try to open the .csv.

 

[Guest]

After I save the file as a csv it becomes exponential. If I open it it still
stays that way.

I need the csv file to not have exponential values in it so I can import it
into my erp system.

Thanks

 

[Dave Peterson]

Try saving the original file once more.

But don't reopen it in excel. Instead open it using NotePad.

Does it look ok there?

 

[shriop]

The standard answer is to put a ' at the begining of the data, and
excel will then open the csv column as a text column and will not
display the '.