Why doesn't Excel automatically detect data type for text / CSV imports anymore?

Question

I recently did an Office update and found that things have changed a bit when I import data from a CSV. One annoying thing I noticed is that, instead of automatically recognizing data as either text or numbers, all columns are formatted as text. This means that once you've created your spreadsheet, you can't format or filter data as numbers unless you individually convert that column from text to numbers. 

I figured out that when you're importing the data from the CSV, you can go to the transform tab and click "detect data type," which solves the problem, but why isn't that the default? The majority of spreadsheets have text and numbers, so it seems ridiculous to format all numbers as text unless you specifically tell Excel to do otherwise. 

A small thing, but kind of annoying when you have to first figure it out.

Answer 1

Hi Jc5757,

Can you share the requested information above when you have time?

Regards,

Tina

Answer 2

Hi Jc5757,

To better understand the situation, could you provide the information below?

1.The detailed Office version and channel information. Go to File>Account>Product Information and capture a screenshot like below:

2.For "instead of automatically recognizing data as either text or numbers, all columns are formatted as text." Please capture a related screenshot to describe it.

Regards,

Tina