Name your input file as .txt (not as .csv). When you read it in through the
text import wizard, specify the format of each of the relevant columns to be
Text, rather than letting it default to General.
--
David Biddulph

"johnwy" wrote in message
...
I am having the same problem with converting data from Excel to DIF
formatting. Were you able to resolve this problem and if so how did you?



"Ken Ent" wrote:

I am extracting data from another application and outputting a .DIF file.
When I open this file in EXCEL, the cells are individually formatted such
that, even though the field is a text field, some of the data does not
contain "text" characters, only numbers. Excel automatically converts
those
to a number format and thus removes any leading zeros, which renders the
data
useless. Alternatively, if the data is numeric except there is an "E" in
it,
EXCEL converts it to numeric with scientific notation -- again rendering
it
useless. Preformatting the worksheet doesn't work because EXCEL opens a
new
worksheet when you "open". I could use some ideas on how to work around
this
problem. I only have limited output options from my application database
(unfortunately, ODBC is not one of them.)