Why do the preceding zeros disappear when I remove dashes?

[carridin1]

I work with spreadsheets that contain list of numbers separated by dashes,
such as 001-117-251. I then have to copy these numbers into a software
program that will not accept dashes, so I would like to remove them using the
Find and Replace feature in Excel. However, when I do this any zeros at the
beginning of the number vanish, and I end up with something like this:
1117251. How do I prevent the zeros from vanishing?

 

[Bob Phillips]

It changes it to a number in which leading zeroes are suppressed.

Try formatting as '000000000'. It may lose them in the export, but try it
and see.

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HTH

Bob

(there's no email, no snail mail, but somewhere should be gmail in my addy)

 

[David Biddulph]

If the export loses the leading zeroes, try using a helper column
=TEXT(A1,"000000000")

 

[carridin1]

That works, thanks guys!