Excel: while merging column contents using ampersand I “lose” zeros

Question

I need to merge different columns like:

AB 0054 00000137

I do it this way

=A1&B1&C1

It works but my Zeroes get lost.

The text in my columns has been formatted in "personal" with zeroes before what's contained in the cell. If I change cell to text or numeric I lose zeroes.

Any hint?

Answer 1

=text(A1, "<your number format>") & text(B1, "<your number format>") & text(C1, "<your number format>")