Trying to insert a zero into a spreadsheet: 0851274 for instance but when the sheet saves it removed the zero. This needs to be in. I’ve tried entering ‘0851274 and it removes the zero still. Same with format cells etc.

Help!

Try doing =”0851274″

Format cells as text prior to entering data

Need to save as a CSV file though (for inland revenue) which doesn’t work still. Darn 🙁

what’s going to happen to the numbers afterwards ? – if they’re only going to be read by a human, maybe 0.851274 or starting with letter O rather than zero would be OK ?

(granted, would be a pain if there are loads of numbers)

‘0851274
edit – gah, that doesn’t work either

The zero is saved fine with the method you are using but excel removes it when you open the .csv file with excel. Try opening the saved .csv file in notepad.

there are various ways to retain the zero, as above. But it is stripped once one opens the file again in excel – one might assume that IR people will be opening the file in excel (and stripping the zero). True, they might not be using excel but we can’t be sure

If they want the file in .csv format with leading zeros you can’t do more than give them what they asked for. I doubt they are using excel to read the files but even if they are I’m sure they are aware of the problem and import the data into the spreadsheet as text (retaining the leading zeros) rather than double clicking on it.

Assuming the “851274” bit of “0851274” is unique, just open the CSV in notepad (or notepad++) and do search and replace before sending.

No, it’s really simple

I’ve tried entering ‘0851274

works fine. The leading zeros are in the .csv file and if you open it in notepad you will see they are there.