XL: Hexadecimal Values Changed When Imported from .CSV File

• Microsoft Excel for Windows, versions 2.x, 3.x, 4.x, 5.0, 5.0c
• Microsoft Excel for OS/2, versions 2.2, 3.0
• Microsoft Excel for the Macintosh, versions 2.x, 3.x, 4.x, 5.0, 5.0a
• Microsoft Excel for Windows 95, versions 7.0, 7.0a
• Microsoft Excel 97 for Windows
• Microsoft Excel 98 Macintosh Edition

SUMMARY

This article describes how hexadecimal numbers, alphanumeric entries, and numerical entries are interpreted when you import them into Microsoft Excel.

MORE INFORMATION

Hexadecimal Numbers

Hexadecimal numbers may not be correctly interpreted when you import them to Microsoft Excel. Because Microsoft Excel reads certain hexadecimal numbers, such as 06E2, as scientific notation, the hexadecimal number 06E2 will be imported as 6.00E+02 or as 600 in the decimal format.

If you use a version 5.0 or later of Microsoft Excel, you can maintain a hexadecimal number's original format by selecting the text option found under "Column Data Format" in Step 3 of 3 of the Text Import Wizard. The Wizard will automatically start when opening a text file in Microsoft Excel 5.0 or later.

If you are using Microsoft Excel 4.0 or earlier, you could open the delimited text file in a text editor such as Notepad or Teach Text, and enter the affected hexadecimal values as a text string before importing to Excel. For example, change 06E2 to:

   ="06E2"

Alphanumeric

Alphanumeric entries, in which "e" or "E" is the only alpha character in the string and "e" or "E" is not the first or last character in the string, are interpreted as exponential numbers. For example, 123E4 will be interpreted as 123*(10)^4

To have this number interpreted as text, it also must be entered as ="123E4" in the text file.

Numeric

A numeric entry in the file, such as "1234," is imported as a number, not as text, and is aligned to the right.

For more information on importing files into Microsoft Excel, see the "Opening and Saving Text Files" the Application Note (WE0801 or ME0802). For information about this Application Note, query on the following words in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

   CSV and Opening and Text and Files and Saving