I have exported a list of contacts from my mobile phone's contact
database into a CSV file. These contact records contain phone numbers
that have a plus sign in them noting international dialing codes.
(i.e. +44 7712345678 would be a british mobile phone number).

The problem is that when this file is opened in excel, the number is
automatically represented in exponential notation and the plus sign is
stripped.

How can I avoid this so that the number maintains it's plus sign?

Example: The phone number +44 7123456789 gets converted autmatically
to 4.47123E+11. Converting to text keeps the same formatting and the +
sign is lost.

Any suggestions?

Yes, there is a way to avoid Excel from automatically converting phone numbers with a plus sign into exponential notation and stripping the plus sign. Follow these steps:

1. Open a new Excel workbook and click on the "Data" tab.
2. Click on "From Text/CSV" in the "Get & Transform Data" section.
3. Select the CSV file that contains the phone numbers with the plus sign and click on "Import".
4. In the "Text Import Wizard - Step 1 of 3" dialog box, select "Delimited" and click "Next".
5. In the "Text Import Wizard - Step 2 of 3" dialog box, select "Comma" as the delimiter and click "Next".
6. In the "Text Import Wizard - Step 3 of 3" dialog box, select the column that contains the phone numbers with the plus sign and select "Text" as the column data format. This will ensure that Excel treats the phone numbers as text and does not convert them to numbers. You can also select other columns and set their data format as needed. Click "Finish".
7. Excel will import the CSV file and display the phone numbers with the plus sign as text, without converting them to exponential notation or stripping the plus sign.

By following these steps, you can import the CSV file containing phone numbers with a plus sign into Excel while maintaining the plus sign and avoiding the automatic conversion to exponential notation.

Hi Joseph

The way Excel treats csv files is very irritating - to avoid this
automatic conversion process, you need to rename the file as a .txt
extension file (you can do this via Windows Explorer) and then open it
in Excel. Excel will then fire the text import wizard, and you can
specify this column as text.

Hope this helps!

Richard


wrote:
I have exported a list of contacts from my mobile phone's contact
database into a CSV file. These contact records contain phone numbers
that have a plus sign in them noting international dialing codes.
(i.e. +44 7712345678 would be a british mobile phone number).

The problem is that when this file is opened in excel, the number is
automatically represented in exponential notation and the plus sign is
stripped.

How can I avoid this so that the number maintains it's plus sign?

Example: The phone number +44 7123456789 gets converted autmatically
to 4.47123E+11. Converting to text keeps the same formatting and the +
sign is lost.

Any suggestions?