problems importing phone numbers from Excel 2003

[dawnd3]

I usually don't have problems with this, but today I am getting scientific notation IN the database for the phone numbers. I have made the columns text in the spreadsheet and even put actual text with the numbers in the first 5 rows, just to make sure it knows it is text. However all the fields that have text are importing correctly, but the ones that have only numbers are turning into scientific notation. I feel like I have tried everything. What else can I do?

Thank you,

Dawn

 

[SkipVought]

Hi,

It is one of my pet peeves...

Numeric IDENTIFIERS that are stored as NUMBERS. Excel is very "helpful," storing anythig that looks like a number as a NUMBER, which it should, really. So unless you STORE the value as TEXT, which IMHO a Phone number or Zip code or Invoice number or Part number or Employee number (and on and on) ought to be, Excel will store these as numbers.

Fix the source!

Skip,

_{Just traded in my old subtlety...
for a NUANCE!}

 

[SeeThru]

In Excel, add a new column, and set the source to "'" + a1 where A1 is the cell with the phone number.

When you import this column, it should always show up as text, solving the problem.

If you still have issues, try adding a different character (search as P for phone, and using a search and replace in Access once imported to remove it.

If the calculated column does not import correctly, use Excel's copy and paste special, and paste formulas as values to ensure the modified value is saved in a column.

For future use, CSV or TXT files allow you to set the field type, without it being over-ridden - see if your data supply can use that format.

SeeThru
Synergy Connections Ltd - Uk Telemarketing and Telesales Services and
Synergy Mobile Solutions - UK Mobile phones, land lines and call packages

 

[dawnd3]

Skip, what else could I do, I formatted the cells as TEXT? I even added ALT+160 before each phone number (concatenate then paste special values) but it still didn't import to access properly.

SeeThru, I did all your ideas too (before I read your post.) But saving as a txt file did the trick!!!

Dawn