Stop Excel from automatically converting certain text values to dates

Question

Does anyone happen to know if there is a token I can add to my csv for a certain field so Excel doesn\'t try to convert it to a date?

I\'m trying to write a .csv fil

Answer 1

Okay found a simple way to do this in Excel 2003 through 2007. Open a blank xls workbook. Then go to Data menu, import external data. Select your csv file. Go through the wizard and then in "column data format" select any column that needs to be forced to "text". This will import that entire column as a text format preventing Excel from trying to treat any specific cells as a date.