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When importing and manipulating data in Excel, certain coding systems (like CAS numbers) are always a problem because numbers like 8000-01-7 can become 7th of january 8000.

There is usually (but not always) a way to get around this, e.g. formatting all columns as text for a data import, pre-formatting all columns as text before pasting information to them etc.

However, there are a multitude of ways in which Excel's date conversation can creep in unexpectedly. When this happens, and going back to the source data is not possible, is there a way to get excel to return the original value? Or once it has been "helpfully" converted to a date is the original string information now lost?

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    Microsoft's answer. SO's take
    – Raystafarian
    Sep 16, 2015 at 15:59
  • The solution for .cvs files is just to set the columns to import as text rather than "general". But I can't see if there's any way to undo it if the mistake's already been made. Also, when opening html files there is no prompt to decide how to import the data, it just converts everything and I can't see how to get it to actually give me the source :(
    – Some_Guy
    Sep 17, 2015 at 9:18

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I would use the Power Query Add-In to avoid this issue. It has the concept of data types and you have control over how they are set for each column.

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  • Wish I could, but I'm using a networked PC at the office :(
    – Some_Guy
    Sep 17, 2015 at 8:06
  • So am I. You just need to ask your IT Admins nicely. You can reassure them it is provided by Microsoft.
    – Mike Honey
    Sep 17, 2015 at 22:16
  • Do you think answer this question and outline whether powerquery could be used to achieve this? Thanks superuser.com/questions/974295/…
    – Some_Guy
    Sep 18, 2015 at 8:42
  • Yes it can - I just posted an answer there.
    – Mike Honey
    Sep 19, 2015 at 23:29

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