How do I stop Excel 2007 from using scientific notation?

[jonnyjd]

I need to stop Excel 2007 from changing a location code (38E2) to scientific
notation. This file needs to be in a CSV format. I have formatted the cell
as TEXT and tried using the single quote before the data ('38E2). Each time
i reopen the CSV file, any cell with that same format (xxEx) turns back to
scientific notation. (Ex. 38E2 > 3.80E03, 42E2 > 4.20E03, etc)

 

[David Biddulph]

If you've got a text value of 38E2 in the cell, that will be what is in the
CSV file. You can check by reading the CSV with something like notepad.
The problem arises if you open the CSV with Excel and allow Excel to decide
how to interpret the data.

Rather than just opening the CSV with Excel, if you want to read it with
Excel, use what in Excel 2003 is the "Data/ Import External Data ..."
feature, which allows you to specify that the relevant columns should be
read as Text, not General format. I understand that the Excel 2007
equivalent is "Data/ Get External Data ...".

 

[JLatham]

You'd get the same seeming bad behavior out of Excel 2003 also. You may have
noticed a warning that "some features" of your workbook were incompatible
with the CSV file format. Excel was just trying to hint that you were going
to have this problem when you open the file later on.

One way to deal with it, perhaps not the answer you were looking for, is to
open a new workbook and then use Data --> Import External Data and then
select the group with .csv and .txt file types in it and work through the
definition of the import process, and at one point you can tell it that the
column for that group is to be imported as TEXT!! not converted to scientific
notation.

Hope that helps at least a little.