Suppress automatic conversion to dates on import of .cvs file

Hello, there is one particular problem I have with Excel, and it regards importing data from plaintext:

My supervisor has asked me to provide her with a .csv dataset (plaintext) that will be used in Excel - and in other software (which is why it needs to be .csv) for her research purposes. Now, the problem largely revolves around Excel's autoformatting feature where the number groups "5-9" and "10-14" get reformatted as a date.

I know that in Excel you can format the cell as text, or that you can write '5-9 or '10-14 but I am unaware of any way to format a .csv so that when it is loaded into excel, it automatically performs this functionality. I have tried writing '5-9 and '10-14 in the .csv document, but when I load in into excel, the apostrophe is not hidden.

Essentially, the question is: how do I format a plaintext cell so that when the file is loaded into excel, you can see literal "5-9" and "10-14" (without quotes). The resultant sting must be exactly that; "5 to 9" or "5-9 ye" or any other kludges aren't acceptable to my supervisor.

Thanks in advance.

Edit: I solved my own problem: the way to do this is to write the cell as ="5-9"

Moderator's note: Welcome to the forum! I updated your title to better reflect your question, in case someone knows of a better solution. --6SJ