Saving Some Numbers As CSV Changes To Dates

[Dazzawm]

I have some numbers in a normal excel sheet, but when I save as CSV it changes them to dates. How do I get round this please? Thanks.

For example

9-3 changes to 09-Mar
9-5 changes to 09-May

 

[Dazzawm]

The problem is not the opening it's the saving. I can't emphasise enough that it needs to be saved as a CSV and imported into a program. And this is where it keeps changing to dates.

 

[Andrew Poulsom]

What do you see if you open the csv in Notepad? Not dates I suspect.

 

[Dazzawm]

What do you see if you open the csv in Notepad? Not dates I suspect.

That's correct. Then if I open a blank excel and import it and choose the said column as text all is fine. Its then when I save as CSV again to load into my program it changes back to dates.

 

[Andrew Poulsom]

If you save as csv what you see is what you get. So make sure that the data appears as it should in Excel before saving as csv. I repeat, it's only Excel that converts to dates. Another program should read it fine.

 

[Dazzawm]

I fear I will have to do this everytime? If so I will have to rethink. I will be saving dozens of files every day so this will be very time consuming. I may have to change them to 93 and 95 etc.. without the dash. This is what causes the problem.

 

[Andrew Poulsom]

Do what every time?

 

[Dazzawm]

Do what every time?

Save as a text file, import, choose column etc then save as csv again.

 

[Andrew Poulsom]

I don't understand why you would need to do that, sorry.

 

[Dazzawm]

I don't understand why you would need to do that, sorry.

Thats what I am asking.

I work on a normal excel sheet. I need to save as csv as stated then this problem occurs. Do I have to save as a text then go through all this everytime?

 

[Andrew Poulsom]

As I said before, if you save a worksheet as csv, what you see is what you get in the csv file. Check it out by opening the csv in Notepad. It's only Excel that (intelligently) converts text like 9-3 to a date.