How to keep leading zeros in Excel - Data Export

If you use Excel not only to calculate numbers but also maintain records such as post/zip codes you may need to keep leading zeros in cells. The point is that Microsoft Excel treats postal codes, phone numbers and other similar entries as numbers applies the General or Number format to them, and automatically removes preceding zeroes.

Luckily it is possible to work with Excel, without truncating post/zip codes, following the steps below.

1. Export your results to a CSV file
2. Open Microsoft Excel
3. Select 'Data > [Import] From Text' and navigate to the saved results export CSV file
4.  Microsoft will prompt you to select what type of data file it is. Select 'delimited', then click 'next'
   
   
   
   
5. Select 'Comma' and then click next
   
   

   

6. Navigate to and highlight the postcode column, change the Column data format to _ text _ and then click Finish. 
   
   
   
   
7. Check the postcode in Excel, it should now be in the correct format

If working in Excel, after making any changes to the CSV file, we also recommend checking the file in notepad or TextEdit before reimporting to Vega, this will ensure the postcodes have been correctly maintained.






Then searching for a postcode and checking that it matches the postcode in Vega.