Using XL2003...

I have a source worksheet that has numbers stored as text, with leading
zeros.
I load that worksheet into an array for faster processing
I use a msgbox to confirm that I still have my full string values, including
leading zeros

but for everything I've tried, when I paste those values back into other
cells, they show up as numeric and I lose my leading zeros. The overall
length of the string, and the number of leading zeros can vary.

Sub pasteavalue()
Dim rets As String
rets = (Sheet4.Range("C6712").Value)
MsgBox rets ' shows 05315
Sheet4.Range("G6712").Value= rets ' pastes as numeric 5315
End Sub

I'm sure this must be simple, but a google search and help file search
hasn't turned up any solutions (maybe I'm missing a key search term or
something).

The problem is that I then use the pasted value to pull data from another
file that includes the leading zeros, and because of this situation, it
doesn't find any matches.

Many thanks for any assistance!
Keith


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