Format of Excel Column 2

[kabushnell]

I have a .txt file that I am opening with Excel so I can parse some data from the file and import into another program. I have one column of data that I cannot get to format properly. Most of the cells contain numbers which need to be formated to nine digits. I can format those ok using the custom feature and setting the format to 000000000. There are a group of cells though that contain 74680E101 in the original data but when opened by Excel it changes the cell to 7.468E+105. Is there a way to format this column so that the numbers are all nine digits long and these other cells are 74680E101 versus 7.468E+105?

 

[pbrodsky]

You need to force the column to text format. "74680E101" is a valid number in so-called scientific notation, and will normally be interpreted as a number.

 

[SkipVought]

FYI,

Fields that contain NUMERIC CHARACTERS that are not used for numeric calculations are usually IDENTIFIERS, like Part Number, Invoice Number, ZIP code, Employee Number, etc.

These fields should be imported as TEXT, as pbrodsky suggested.

Skip,

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[kabushnell]

Thanks, that's what I needed. When I do the Text to Columns I just format that column as text and it comes through fine.