Strange formatting issue on csv

[gr8rck]

Hi All,

I have an issue where a number (11-12 digits starting with a '0') won't format properly when re-opening the file after its been sent to me. We are re-saving as a csv-utf8 but it keeps looking like this...

3.21E+09 where it should look like 03211008857 If I copy and paste the field it shows the numbers correctly. The person uploading these values did create a custom text string format but that doesn't seem to work when re-opening the file. What is my issue here?

Thanks,

gr8rck

 

[Toadstool]

Hi Gr8rck,

I created a CSV file with this text:

Row,Number,Text
1,3211008857,03211008857
2,2222222,acccc
3,2222222,dffff

When I open in Excel I use the text import wizard

I specify it's a comma delimited file

...but on the 3rd screen I left click what I want as text and specify that column is text. You can see the number column is defaulted to General so it will treat that column as numeric.

The result is

 

[gr8rck]

Hi,

This is happening when someone sends me a csv (from excel) file directly and I open it. Is my mistake that I'm opening it directly instead of using an import method? If so, I've never heard of needing to do that before since I have excel.

 

[Toadstool]

Sadly the opening of CSV files seems to have changed for each release of Excel. Your profile doesn't say which version you have but maybe this page will help: https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/office/import-or-export-text-txt-or-csv-files

 

[gr8rck]

Ok, this makes sense. I'm usually the one creating the csv vs opening it from an external user that created it. Thanks for the guidance. I'll check this out further.

Ryan.