# Prevent Excel changing imported data

**URL:** <https://the.fmsoup.org/t/prevent-excel-changing-imported-data/2305>\
**Category:** Resources\
**Tags:** excel-export\
**Created:** [July 5, 2021, 1:30pm UTC](https://the.fmsoup.org/t/prevent-excel-changing-imported-data/2305 "2021-07-05T13:30:15Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![AndyHibbs](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/the.fmsoup.org/andyhibbs/32/3089_2.png) [@AndyHibbs](https://the.fmsoup.org/u/AndyHibbs)\
**Post date:** [July 5, 2021, 1:30pm UTC](https://the.fmsoup.org/t/prevent-excel-changing-imported-data/2305/1 "2021-07-05T13:30:16Z")

</div>

Having had this enquiry from a client last week, wondering why her exported CSV data from Filemaker was being changed when she opened it in Excel, I thought the following link may be useful to others:

> **[Stop Excel from Converting Text to Number or Date format when Opening a CSV file](https://www.winhelponline.com/blog/stop-excel-convert-text-to-number-date-format-csv-file/)**
>
> A comma-separated values (CSV) file is a delimited text file that uses a comma to separate values. Each line in a .csv file is a data record consisting of one or more fields, with each field separated by a comma. A .csv file can be imported to and...

Regards  
Andy

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![planteg](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/the.fmsoup.org/planteg/32/627_2.png) [@planteg](https://the.fmsoup.org/u/planteg)\
**Post date:** [July 5, 2021, 1:42pm UTC](https://the.fmsoup.org/t/prevent-excel-changing-imported-data/2305/2 "2021-07-05T13:42:54Z")

</div>

Thanks Andy for this ! I guess many of the members know these things because they have worked a lot in Excel . . . but when it's time to export to Excel, we forget about them and get stomach burns.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![OliverBarrett](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/f19dbf/32.png) [@OliverBarrett](https://the.fmsoup.org/u/OliverBarrett)\
**Post date:** [July 5, 2021, 3:27pm UTC](https://the.fmsoup.org/t/prevent-excel-changing-imported-data/2305/3 "2021-07-05T15:27:29Z")

</div>

That's useful! Thanks Andy.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Susurrus](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/the.fmsoup.org/susurrus/32/472_2.png) [@Susurrus](https://the.fmsoup.org/u/Susurrus)\
**Post date:** [July 5, 2021, 6:27pm UTC](https://the.fmsoup.org/t/prevent-excel-changing-imported-data/2305/4 "2021-07-05T18:27:05Z")

</div>

I have not ran into this yet but I am sure I will sooner or later. Thanks for sharing.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![OliverBarrett](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/f19dbf/32.png) [@OliverBarrett](https://the.fmsoup.org/u/OliverBarrett)\
**Post date:** [July 5, 2021, 6:56pm UTC](https://the.fmsoup.org/t/prevent-excel-changing-imported-data/2305/5 "2021-07-05T18:56:46Z")

</div>

I also ran into an issue where reading "text" data in Excel with numbers was misinterpreted as numeric data. Checking the column type, it said "text", yet the program I was using still interpreted the columns as numbers.  
My solution was to use ... **Excel ... Data ... Text To Columns.**  
That put a ' mark before each "text" value and it was finally treated as text.  
In my case I was reading the Excel sheet directly so this situation is a bit different.