Why Excel drops leading zeros from barcodes, and how to avoid it

You open a supplier export and your barcodes show 3.76012E+12, or 376012345690 instead of 0376012345690. The file is fine: Excel is reading your codes as numbers.

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What happens

When opening a CSV, Excel guesses each column's type. A string of digits is treated as a number: leading zeros vanish and large numbers switch to scientific notation. Save the file and the loss becomes permanent.

Workarounds inside Excel

They work, but must be redone for every file:

1Import the CSV through Data › From Text and force the column to “Text”.
2Apply a 13-zero custom format (display mask only).
3Prefix codes with an apostrophe before importing.

Merge without converting anything

DataMerge reads every cell as text, from upload to export. Your barcodes, references and store codes come out exactly as they went in, including in the exported Excel file.

Frequently asked questions

What if the zero is already gone in my file?

Start again from the original export (CSV): once Excel has saved it, the zero no longer exists in the file.

Are dates protected too?

Yes, no value is converted into a date.

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