I am creating a csv file which is all text. Some of the text values in one of the columns look more or less numeric. So I put all values in that column in "s. But still Excel does not always left align those value. And worse, change "10-11" to 11-Oct. Then if I tell Excel that it's really a text column the 11-Oct becomes 40827!

Is there any trick which I can use for the values in this column so that Excel will really treat them as text?

(I know that if I Import the file I can get it to look like it should. But the idea is to have it open that way in the first place.)

Thanks, Bob

Hi
Two things you could try:
1. for those "numeric values" you do not want Excel to treat as numbers you need to put a single quote in front of the entry. This forces excel to treat the entries as text.
2. Format the relevant column in Excel as text.
The first option should do the trick though.
Hope this helps.
OTPM

Thank you very much OTPM! The single quote trick rings a bell but I had completely forgotten about it.

Thanks again, Bob