Work around for Excel lose leading and trailing zeros when importing csv data
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This is from reddit. “…open a blank workbook in excel, then from the Data tab, under the “Get External Data” setting, choose “from text” and point it to your file. This will open the text import wizard. On the first step, choose “delimeted” and then “Next.” On the second, select the checkbox next to “Comma” then click “Next.” Now in the third step, the field should be shown, along with Excel’s best guess as to the data type. You’ll see that your numbered fields are shown as “General.” Click the column containing the numbers and change that field to “text.” Do this for all applicable fields that you want to save leading zeros for, then click “Finish.” (Excel truncates leading zeros if it thinks a field is a number. Leaving it as text will preserve the zeros.)…
My workaround is to stick an apostrophe (tick mark) for the numbers I want to keep the zeros. In other words that essentially make it a text by adding the tick mark.