crystal reports using excel as a database

[rwaegener]

i am using excel spreadsheets as databases for my crystal reports - i am having a problem with number fields in the excel database being brought into the crystal reports as strings. the result is that the numbers in the database are being read as null fields. does anyone know how to fix this ??

 

[SydneyGeek]

I haven't used CR but Access has a habit of guessing the data type of imported / linked Excel worksheets. If you have a few blank cells at the top of the column, Access decides that the data type is text. Maybe CR does the same?
One workaround is to put one or two dummy rows at the top of the sheet, where every cell is populated. Add a flag so that you can exclude the dummy rows from your analysis.

Denis