Forum Discussion
Please update Excel to handle more than 15 digit numbers!
I'm a professional database designer, and this limitation has caused me no end of headaches.
The problem: numbers that are more than 15 digits long have all digits after the 15th converted into zeros.
Microsoft provided workaround: format the the field as text.
This workaround is only useful if you are doing data entry directly into an existing Excel spreadsheet that you are able to format the cells ahead of time. It's incredibly unhelpful when you are pushing and pulling data from different data sources. For example, if I need to push data out of a program like FileMaker to Excel, and the system I am pushing from has numeric fields (in particular ID fields), excel sees them as numbers and replaces the digits after the 15th. This jacks up formulas as well as any data synching possibilities.
In situations like that, I end up having to export the data as .csv file, and then pull it in to an excel sheet and then do a bunch of conversion options on import (which does not always work, btw). But this is not a practical solution for every day users who are not tech savvy. I should be able to export the data directly to excel without the data being converted.
This has been a big problem for every client I have that requires data being pushed to Excel. And this problem has existed for decades. Other spreadsheet programs (like google sheets) do not appear to have this issue.
Can someone please explain why Excel continues to cling to this archaic standard? Are there any plans to update Excel to handle more than 15 digits?
I know I am not the only one who has run into this problem. I've seen all kinds of posts about it. But trying to let Microsoft know how much of a problem this is has been a challenge. Their article on the subject had a link to give product feedback, and that link led me to this space.
So here it is: product feedback for Excel.
PLEASE FIX THIS!
Thank you.
Chris
You might request it from within Excel (Help > Feedback), or on the Excel Feedbak Portal
But I think it's improbable that Microsoft will change this - it would require totally redesigning the way Excel stores and processes numbers.
Thanks for the redirect.
I can see how it would be an issue programming wise. But I think they can solve that using some preferences that allow for backwards compatibility. It is such an important fix for so many reasons: credit card numbers, primary keys, scientific calculations, etc.
For the credit card numbers and primary keys you may use texts and prevent converting such on import with settings
(for modern Excel)
For the scientific calculations it depends, affected if only input data taken from the cell shall have more than 15 digits.
