Number format for text export from Excel

Question

Basically I am exporting a block of columns from Excel to text file. that might look similar to this in Excel:

0 34.3 22.555 56.8970 34

Now I want that to look in the text file as:

0.000 34.300 22.555 56.897 34.000

so, essentially keeping the spacing the same (same number of decimals).

But, when I export I am not able to achieve that.

Tips and helps will be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

If you've formatted the cells in Excel to look the way you want them to appear (i.e. in this case: Format, Cells, Number, Decimal places = 3) when you Save As, Text, it should save the text with the appropriate number of decimal places.

Answer 2

1. Format the cell(s) to the desire format
   Highlight the cell(s) > Press Ctrl-1 (or right click, format cells) > Number > Decimal places = 3

2. Save
   a) File > Save As > Choose appropriate file format, like CSV ⁽¹⁾ or TSV ⁽²⁾ > Save
   ---OR---
   b) For TSV ⁽²⁾ with no quotes ", Select all > Copy > Open Notepad > Paste > Save

The decimal places formatting is preserved. (Tested in Excel 2003)

Note:
(1) CSV = Comma-separated values file format (wiki)
(2) TSV = Tab-separated values file format (wiki)