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Make Excel treat all cells (in a CSV file) as text

Anonymous
2017-05-02T09:14:25+00:00

Is there a way to make Excel treat all cells in a file, which is not an Excel spreadsheet, but something like txt or csv, as plain Text?

Right now I have a csv file with some cells containing phone numbers and Excel opens it and automatically treat some phone numbers differently.   In some cells, the phone number +1-999-9999999 was interpreted as =1-999-9999999 and thus -10000997 was displayed.

And all those phone numbers interpreted as numerals were aligned right.  This is very annoying.

Is there a way to make Excel treat all cells without format information as dumb text unless some explicit formatting is applied, instead of the other way round?  I am not talking about format actions or macros.  I am looking for something that simply happens when the file is opened.

Thanks.

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Anonymous
2017-05-03T07:11:18+00:00

Regarding the csv formatting concern that you encounter, it's possible that the file that you're trying to open is saved or uploaded on a general cell format.  As an alternative solution, we suggest that you:

  1. Create a back up of the csv file that you're working on.
  2. Open the csv file and save it as an xls file.
  3. Once done, open the duplicate xls file and edit the cells depending on the desired format.

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Do post back if you need further assistance.

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  1. Anonymous
    2017-05-02T15:00:36+00:00

    Thanks, but I don't want any formatting.  The csv file contains dumb text and I would like Excel to leave it alone and leave it as dumb text.  The clever formatting by Excel isn't smart enough so it results in a worse output than not doing anything to the file.  Treating a phone number as an arithmetic equation to be computed is pretty dumb, I think. That is my concern regarding Excel.

    Shouldn't Excel treat non-spreadsheet (xls, xlsx, etc) files as plain text until the user asks for conversion, automatic or otherwise?  The only structure a csv file has is columns.  It provides no additional information on what each cell is.  Until The Singularity is here, Excel should not try and do automatic conversion.

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  2. Anonymous
    2017-05-02T12:38:40+00:00

    Hi,

    To open a csv file on the desired cell format, it's highly suggested to ask the sender to use the cell format tool. However, if the received csv file is exported or downloaded, the file is expected to follow the saved cell format. For mobile numbers you can use Phone Number under Format Cells>Number>Special.

    Let us know if you have other concerns regarding Excel.

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