Disabling scientific notation auto-correct

Hi all,

So I work in science, where we have 96-well plates arrayed from A1 to H12. This causes a problem when referring to well locations E1-E12 and excel is forever changing the E* values into scientific notation whenever we manipulate these cells.

For example, I have a script that removes "leading 0s" from well names:

17A01 --> 17A1
231B09 --> 231B9

and the like.


All the cells start off as text, but when my script runs it turns the E* cell formats into scientific notation and changes the value

35E01 --> 3.50E+02
15E07 --> 1.50E+08

and if I then convert the format of the cells to text I get

3.50E+02 --> 350
1.50E+08 --> 150000000

which is singularly unhelpful

my code is simple:

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what do I need to do to make sure that the text is picked up as string, then laid back down as a string so that excel stops futzing with my well names?

Try this...

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Alternatively, if you are able to put a single quote in front of the text e.g.; '15E7 , that will keep it as text.