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Niek Otten Niek Otten is offline
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Default Why does excel turn numbers larger than 15 digits to zero?

rename the .csv file a .txt file. That will pop-up a wizard on opening. There you can choose the cells to be text.

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Kind regards,

Niek Otten
Microsoft MVP - Excel


"Aaron" wrote in message ...
| Thank you for such a quick response Niek,
|
| but... my group frequently deals with .csv files that when you open then, it
| automatically sends the text to columns without allowing the option to turn
| the long fields to text.
|
| Is there an alternate way to open the file so it does not automatically send
| text to columns without asking?
|
| "Niek Otten" wrote:
|
| Excel's numerical precision is 15 decimal digits.
| If you need more, like for credit card numbers, format the cell as text before entering the "number" or precede the number by
an
| apostrophe (which will not show)
| Note that you van not calculate with these text-"numbers"
|
| --
| Kind regards,
|
| Niek Otten
| Microsoft MVP - Excel
|
| "Aaron" wrote in message ...
| | When I type any number into excel that is greater than 15 digits, it turns
| | all the remaining numbers to zero. For instance, if I enter 4444555566667777
| | excel throws it into scientific format. When I turn it back to a number the
| | number is now 4444555566667770.
| |
| | Any Idea why this is, and how I can make it stop?
|
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|