Get the exporting app to send this item as '26E13 so Excel will see it as
text.
OR
Rename the file to Something.TXT
Use File Open; the Text to Column dialog goes up; and you can specify what
is field is to be - text, date, number. Specify that this data (26E13) is
text
best wishes
--
Bernard V Liengme
Microsoft Excel MVP
www.stfx.ca/people/bliengme
remove caps from email

"Colin" wrote in message
...
When we export for SQL servers and other sources, we frequently run into
the
problem the text fields coming down with "E's" and numerics contained
within
them (such as "26E13", which is one of our item numbers, not numeric -
should
be text) comes down as "2.60E+13" under general setting in cell
formatting.
If you try to convert to text, it will show "26000000000000".

Anybody suggest possible solutions?