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.)