scientific notation

Why chance reigniting a thread like this?

For the record, I'm having problems in this area also. I found a workaround, but it required modifying the data before I import it, which is annoying.

I imported a text file containing a column of IDs that consist of numbers with an alpha suffix. I needed to strip off the alpha and keep the number as-is, with the leading zeroes.

I imported the column as "Text" format and everything was fine, but then I did a "replace all" to remove the alpha portion and Excel converted everything to scientific notation - this in spite of the fact that the column format is text. Changing the format to "General" does not fix it. Changing it to "Number" takes it out of scientific notation but loses my leading zeroes.

I don't think Excel should change the format of a cell once I've specified it - if I want to change it I will. Is it trying to anticipate my needs? Is there a way to tell it not to?