Leading zero in CSV

[Kyosti]

So I have tried so many different ways before reaching out to you guys. Is there anyway to have a CSV file with leading zeros in a number field that will not drop the zero when reopening the file?!

 

[kweaver]

I've been through this nightmare many times because Excel thinks it's smart and converts the value to a number that doesn't, of course, have leading zeros.
The workaround I ended up using was to convert the cell(s) to text and put a leading zero.

 

[SpillerBD]

Leading zeros are not part of a value, but a formatting convention. To be able to retain the leading zeros, bring the value in as text.

Just because a "Number" looks like a number and is referred to as a number does not make it a number.
Example, a credit card number is 16 digits. It is not a number but an account identifier because there are not "credit card numbers" from 0000 0000 0000 0001 to 9999 9999 9999 9999.
This occurs in many instances. Part "numbers", Employee "numbers", Invoice "numbers"

 

[Kyosti]

Yeah the only problem is that in reopening the file after making it a text format, Excel in its infinite wisdom drops the 0 again!! I truly hate CSV formatting anyway, but thankfully the automatic upload of the file that is in place reads the 0 as long as when I open the CSV in notepad the 0 is there. So I actually don't need to worry about how Excel opens it. Thanks all!!

 

[SpillerBD]

CSV is not truely a native Excel format. It is often set up as to be opened by Excel directly, but rarely should. Excel assumes the data import with the data type of General.
Excel's "new" tool, Get and Transform is much better in handling the import of files. You can option to use the old Import method which has also seen some improvements. These tools allow the ability to control exactly how a piece of data is read from a file.
I like the ability to work with CSV or TXT files, but there are certain limitations and gotcha's to be careful of.