Formatting a number field to hold a specific number of digits

Ok...hopefully this is simple fix. I wrote an excel program in Excel'03 for a dental office to manage state assistance patients and one of the table columns is the state assistance number. The problem is that the program defaults to a number format when it is entered instead of a text format, which is what I want. The issue is that state assistance numbers are always 8 digits and when it defaults to a number field the program drops the required preceeding zeros. For example the number 00123456 will sometimes show up as 123456, which is wrong. It's like sometimes it will show up right and other times it gets a butterfly in its brain and deletes those zeros irritating the receptionist here. So, how do I get the table to either stay in text format or set up a number format that keeps the preceeding zeros? Any assistance would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Since we can't see your code, format the column as 00000000

Wrong forum, you should PM a Mod to move to Excel General.

Use a Custom Format of: 00000000

If you enter 1234 it will appear as 00001234 though underlying value will be 1234.