Leading Zeros

[nathan.best]

Hello,
I am having a recurring problem. I am in a Copy Mail Center and I do an
excessive amount of data merges. The only problem with this is that I
live in Mass where the zip codes all start with 021. Now when I do a
data merge with word or publisher importing the xls file it removes the
zip codes leading zeroes. Even if I have set the column name to zip
code. So now I have to create an extra text file. This adds time that I
don't really have time for. I usually receive the file. Import to there
document and then print, now I have to open the excel file save as a
CSV or txt then import it into publisher or word. I do an average of 53
mail merges a week. How can I stop excel from removing my leading
zeroes permanently.

Thank you in advance for any Help.

Nathan Best

*Other info - The data is sent to me from DataTel Networks. I have
discussed this with them and they have told me there is nothing they
can do on there end. So I am out of luck with that.

 

[Nestor]

did you try formating the zip code column as text?

 

[Kooster]

As you do the data entry of the Zip, precede the numerics with an apostrophe
(') character. This will left align the numeric and retain it as a text entry.

On entry '00000-0000
In the sheet it should look like this 00000-0000

P.

 

[nathan.best]

Yes and excel still removes the zeros.

did you try formating the zip code column as text?

 

[nathan.best]

Kooster,
I have no access to the data entry portion of the file. It's created by
seperate departments. and Uploaded into the datatel management server.
Nathan

 

[Kooster]

From your reference to "Datatel" I will assume you are in the college or
university market. It's not difficult for them to give you a "report" with
the proper formatting. Have them "print to file" (.txt file) and you should
be able to read the text file into Excel. From there, you can 'parse' the
data into columns using field length (fixed length) as the delimeter.

P.

 

[nathan.best]

Thank you, that worked perfect.

From your reference to "Datatel" I will assume you are in the college or
university market. It's not difficult for them to give you a "report" with
the proper formatting. Have them "print to file" (.txt file) and you should
be able to read the text file into Excel. From there, you can 'parse' the
data into columns using field length (fixed length) as the delimeter.

P.