Overview
When dealing with importing and exporting you must pay special attention when you are managing a comma delimited, CSV file that contains data with leading zeros. Leading zeros will be dropped if Excel is used to open the file without it being properly formatted. It is good practice to always assume a file could contain leading zeros and always use the following steps to open comma delimited, CSV file.
How to Open a csv file as text in Excel 2010
- Open a blank Excel spreadsheet.
- Click the Data tab.
- Click the From Text icon.
- Browse for the file, select it and click Import.
- By default the Delimited button will be selected, which is what you want.
- Click NEXT.
- Uncheck TAB and check COMMA.
- Click NEXT.
- While holding the SHIFT key, scroll over to the last column of the import file and click that column. All columns will be highlighted.
- Select TEXT.
- Click FINISH.
- Click OK to begin importing into current spreadsheet.
The File will open in Excel.
How to Open a csv file as text in Older Versions of Excel
- Open a blank Excel spreadsheet.
- Highlight the entire spreadsheet.
- Right mouse click on the spreadsheet and select Format.
- On the Number tab, select the Text Category.
- Click OK
- Go to Data > Get External Data > Import Text File.
- Browse for the file and select. The Text Import Wizard will appear
- Uncheck TAB and check COMMA.
- Click NEXT
- While holding the SHIFT key, scroll over to the last column of the import file and click that column. All columns will be highlighted.
- Select TEXT.
- Click FINISH
- Click OK to begin importing into current spreadsheet