Stop automatically removing leading zeros?

[Jessica P]

Our database has a report that pulls information into an Excel file, which I
then open. When I open the file, Excel automatically removes the leading
zeros, but I need those leading zeros. There are different numbers of leading
zeros for each line, so I can't just automatically add a zero to each one or
something like that. I don't have access to the report to change how it puts
the data in, so I really need a way to tell Excel to NOT auto "correct" this.
How can I do this? For the record, I'm using Excel 2002.

Thanks!

 

[Peo Sjoblom]

Import the field as text, that's the only way.

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Regards,


Peo Sjoblom

 

[Jessica P]

But I'm not importing it- I'm essentially opening a preexisting spreadsheet.
And Excel just takes it upon itself to make changes that I don't want. Surely
there is some option somewhere to tell it not to automatically change things?