Excel is converting .csv files

Hi!

I am having a problem. We are using Visual Studio to create a program that takes a .txt file and converts it into a .csv file. When we load the .csv file into excel (on excel 2007) it is taking the information we put into Excel and changing it.

It is deleting zeros out of the account numbers and changing certain numbers to dates. I need the stuff Excel is changing. But when I load the .csv file, Excel is designed to remove all the information that is not needed. This is done on default. Is there a way that I can change the default on excel, so it doesn't automatically change numbers or delete information?

The account numbers will look like this: 078453 on the .csv file, but once converted to excel it looks like 78453.

I can't change it to "keep as text" because the .csv file was already loaded and information was already removed.

Can anybody help me with my situation? Please!

Thank you,
Kevin K.

Hi!

I am having a problem. We are using Visual Studio to create a program that takes a .txt file and converts it into a .csv file. When we load the .csv file into excel (on excel 2007) it is taking the information we put into Excel and changing it.

It is deleting zeros out of the account numbers and changing certain numbers to dates. I need the stuff Excel is changing. But when I load the .csv file, Excel is designed to remove all the information that is not needed. This is done on default. Is there a way that I can change the default on excel, so it doesn't automatically change numbers or delete information?

The account numbers will look like this: 078453 on the .csv file, but once converted to excel it looks like 78453.

I can't change it to "keep as text" because the .csv file was already loaded and information was already removed.

Can anybody help me with my situation? Please!

Thank you,
Kevin K.

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Originally Posted by KRayKeeling

Hi!

I am having a problem. We are using Visual Studio to create a program that takes a .txt file and converts it into a .csv file. When we load the .csv file into excel (on excel 2007) it is taking the information we put into Excel and changing it.

It is deleting zeros out of the account numbers and changing certain numbers to dates. I need the stuff Excel is changing. But when I load the .csv file, Excel is designed to remove all the information that is not needed. This is done on default. Is there a way that I can change the default on excel, so it doesn't automatically change numbers or delete information?

The account numbers will look like this: 078453 on the .csv file, but once converted to excel it looks like 78453.

I can't change it to "keep as text" because the .csv file was already loaded and information was already removed.

Can anybody help me with my situation? Please!

Thank you,
Kevin K.

If the data has already been changed, and the zeros removed, then there's nothing you can do unless you can imply where zeros should be and add them back in with some VBA.

Why not go back to the original csv file before the zeros were stripped out, or re-create it from the original source.

Rgds

Thank you everybody for posting their responses to help me out!! The programmer and I found a way to get around it... we went back to Visual Studio and put a caret (^) in front of all the values in the column that must remain original. Then we went and converted it to Excel and replaced the ^ with an apostrophe (which in excel converts that cell to text). It kept the values the way we needed...

But once again thanks for all of your prompt replies!! You guys are the best!

Kevin K.