Forum Discussion

Copper Contributor

Jan 16, 2023

CSV file is dropping zeros on zip codes when imported

Hi, I have a csv file that I eventually need to reformat as an iif file in order to upload it to outlook. There is a column in the file that contains zip codes, some have leading zeros. I have t...

excel

Riny_van_Eekelen

Platinum Contributor

Jan 17, 2023

ABcomputer Try importing the file. Do NOT open it directly in Excel by double-clicking it, as Excel will then assume that the zip codes are numbers and thus drop all leading zeroes.

Importing can be done in different ways. On the Data ribbon, Get Data, CSV/TXT (i.e. Power Query) or Get Data, From Text (Legacy).

I suspect you are not familiar with Power Query. Otherwise, you would not have asked the question. So, let's go for the From Text (Legacy) option. It opens a window, just like the one in Text-to-columns. Follow through steps 1 and 2 to create separate columns (probably Delimited, Comma). In step 3 of 3, in the preview box, select the column with the zip codes and explicitly set the data format to Text.

Press Finish. Now your CSV data should be neatly organised in columns with the leading zeroes of the zip codes preserved.

ABcomputer

Copper Contributor

Jan 17, 2023

Also once the query window opens, should I click on load or transform data?