My SKUs turned into scientific notation
A column of product codes, barcodes, or order numbers now reads 1.24E+11.
Why it happens
- Excel treats anything that looks like digits as a number, and it stores numbers as doubles with 15 significant digits.
- The scientific notation on screen is only the symptom.
- The underlying mistake is category rather than precision.
What to do now
- Go back to the original file.
- Import rather than open: Data → From Text/CSV, then set the code column's type to Text in the dialog before loading.
- If you are the one producing the file, prefix nothing and quote nothing as a workaround.
- Check the end of the number, not the start.
Related problems
The leading zeros disappeared from my spreadsheetProduct codes, zip codes, or account numbers that started with one or more zeros now start with a digit. 00123 is 123, and 07030 is 7030.The supplier sent the same SKU twiceOne product code appears on more than one row of the same file, sometimes with two different prices.My price column will not add upA column that plainly contains prices sums to zero, or sums to less than it should.Merging contact lists gives me duplicatesThree lists went in and the combined file has the same people more than once, often with slightly different spellings, capitalisation, or company names.