Editing CSV files with Microsoft Excel
CSV files can be edited with Microsoft Excel, for example. The automatic cell formatting in Microsoft Excel can cause some data to be incorrectly interpreted and displayed. This occurs in the following examples, among other cases:
- Long numbers may be displayed as exponentials (e.g. telephone numbers, where 123456789123654 becomes 1.234567 E+14).
- Dates and times may be displayed in numerical format (e.g. 02.05.2008 becomes 39570).
- Leading zeroes in numbers may be deleted (e.g. in postal codes, 07743 may become 7743).
In such cases, you must check the corresponding cells or columns and correct the formatting so that the data matches the requirements of the export file. Set for example for formatting for the specified cells to Text. Alternatively, use a different program to edit your import data.