SS#'s lose lose formatting in .csv

  • Thread starter Thread starter Bill
  • Start date Start date
B

Bill

Hi,

I have a user who is entering a list of ss numbers. She
has to have them in this format:

024574882
712894748

First off, we can't get the leading 0 to stay, it just
disappears. I have tried formatting the column as text, as
numbers, as custom #########, and like '983474744. No
matter what we do, after saving and opening it again, the
leading 0's are gone and some number turn in exponential
notations. Can someone please help?? This should be an
easy fix, but it seems the formatting I put on this does
not hold!! thanks in advance.....Bill
 
Select the column

Either click:

Format > Cells > Special > Social Security Number > OK

or

Format > Cells > Custom > Type: 000000000 > OK

hth
Max
 
If you look at your .csv file in notepad, I bet it looks ok.

But reimporting it into excel will get rid of the leading 0's.

If you change the extension to .txt and then File|Open, you'll see the
data|import wizard and you can specify that that field is text (and all the
numbers will be kept).

(And if you widen that column, do your numbers formatted in scientific notation
revert to something you like?)

(Or you could just import them into excel and format the column like Max wrote.)
 
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