Formatting issues with converting .xls to .csv

I am using Excel 2010 and my default is .xls

I have a spreadsheet with 16 digit credit card numbers and expiration dates that start with 0. I formatted the columns as text only. I can save the spreadsheet in the xls format with no problems.

However, when I save as a .csv the credit cards turn into the **.*E+ and the expiration dates are only 3 digits. I have tried preserving the format, not preserving (which send me into an endless loop of preserving /not preserving). I have tried saving the original in 97-2003, but that made no difference either.

Can someone help me with this please?

the problem is that a CSV file is a very basic file format, once you load it up in CSV you will need to reformat, but it has probably at that point converted your data into numbers (your dates) you could try preceeding the values with a ' to force them to be text instead of number.

no problem, glad i could help.

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