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Is there a way to STOP EXCEL from converting data into Scientific Notation?
Microsoft Excel apparently assumes that any data that contains numbers and an E is supposed to be scientific notation and converts it.
17195E000039 automatically changes to 1.7195E+43
17221E000112 automatically changes to 1.7221E+116
Is there a way to prevent Excel from doing this so it doesn't continue to cause problems for all of us users who never want to use SCIENTIFIC NOTATION ever? I cannot foresee any time where I will EVER want to have anything converted to scientific notation. This useless functionality only causes problems.
How do I stop Excel from trying to convert text into scientific without manually performing some operation first?
Unfortunately, the data comes from another system that exports to excel that I cannot change. I cannot manually change the page beforehand and going through afterwards sucks.
Issue also occurs with simple strings (eg "1E6" from microtitre plates). I don't think it's a simple as pnuts or Scott's responses.
See similar Q I just posted with more detail, toy reprex example, and trial solutions that have failed. How to stop csv files converting characters (eg plate well IDs 2E6) to scientific notation?
Is there a way to STOP EXCEL from converting data into Scientific Notation?
As explained by #Scott Craner: For you, No.
This is something that happens automatically when the data is written - by the time you see it it is too late.
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There are site where you can get Unicode characters, like unicode space, for example, you can copy-paste that.
For example, inside the brackets below are two different UNICODE spaces, which you can copy-paste:
U+0020: ( )
U+2001: ( )
Does there exist a Unicode new-line, which I could copy-paste? (PLEASE NOTE, I DON'T ASK ABOUT THE CODE, like U+000D or whatever is considered as new line. I want the "copyable" output, like the above space (which I have put above in brackets and can be copied). So, if there is, please paste it in your answer, so I could copy it, like you copy the unicode space above from brackets. I can't explain it better.
Does there exist a Unicode new-line, which I could copy-paste?
Yes, but it depends on the exact circumstances.
There are many Unicode line-terminators. For example NEL U+0085 but these do not survive being cut & pasted into this answer's text-area input field using the web-browser Chrome. However I can successfully copy&paste it back and forth between, for example, Notepad and Vim text editors.
Of course, neither of these applications respect the meaning of this particular character.
You can cut&paste Unicode LF U+000A between, for example, Vim and Notepad and have it be treated appropriately - but I'm sure the two applications are potentially performing some conversion during the paste operations.
The way cut&paste works is platform dependent, the above is true of MS-Windows-10 and may not be true on Android, IOS, Linux, OS/X or other platforms.
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Is there any way to force Excel 2013 to open files within the same window instance?
I am extremely disappointed that Microsoft is forcing it's users to open multiple instances for every workbook they open. Why on earth would they take away this feature?
This is not making us more productive. Why don't we just start opening a new browser instance every time we visit another website?
I'm constantly opening CSV files throughout the day. I would prefer to have this consolidated to a single instance of excel and the option to drag a tab away from the window when I need a new instance. Microsoft please fix this!
Anyhow, if anyone knows of a hack to work around this I'd like to know.
Thanks in advance!
Apparently, according to Microsoft, this is done by design. They are so excited by this feature that they have even created this blog article to show it off and explain why it's so great.
Unfortunately, there's no way easy or free way to achieve what you want, at least I'm not aware of one.
However, there's a website called "Extend Office" (I have no affiliation with them what-so-ever) that sells various Excel add-ins. One of the add-ins is called Office Tab, which seems to be able to do what you want. There's a trial version for 30 days after which you need to buy. Up to you if you want to go for it or not, I merely point out its existence and I'm in no way endorsing or discouraging it (I've not even tried it!).
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I'm frequently getting .xslx files and do not have the newest Excel to open. Open Office takes too long to open them as does converting software for older Excel versions.
So, I want to open the xlsx file using vim (or maybe notepad++). However, apparently it is not stored as standard text, so trying to open it results in random characters.
Is there some way I can get vim or Notepad++ (or some other text editor) to open an XLSX file?
XLSX is just a zip of a bunch of XML files, so you could unzip them and view the XML, but that isn't going to get you very far, because the XML itself is not all that easy to read. My experience with it isn't extensive, but basically, in worksheets with formulas and numbers, you'll see an XML file for each sheet, containing an element for each cell with information about the cell and what it contains (<f> tags for functions, v for value), except if the cell contains a string, the value is a number referencing it to sharedStrings.xml, which contains basically a list of all unique strings in the entire workbook. I don't see an easy way to just open it up and read the contents the way you seem to want to.
It's possible that converting the xlsx file to something simple like CSV may be faster than trying to convert it to xls, which is a different binary format, but I don't know. Another option is rolling your own conversion program using something like Perl's Spreadsheet::XLSX. I don't know how much this will help you, but hopefully you can get enough information from this to know where to look next.
If you don't like Libre Office, you can use MS Office online and export it to .csv comma-separated which you can edit more easily with vim.
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I have a large dump of data from an outlook email account that comes entirely in .msg files. A quick call to ubuntu's file method revealed that they were Composite Document File V2 Documents (whatever that means). I would really like to be able to read these files as plaintext. Is that possible at all?
Update: Turns out it wasn't totally possible to do what I wanted for large scale data mining on these kinds of files which was a bummer. In case you face the same issue I made a library to address this issue. https://github.com/Slater-Victoroff/msgReader
Documentation isn't great, but it's a pretty small library so it should be self explanatory.
I faced the same problem this morning. I didn't find any information on the file format but it was possible to extract the required information from the file using strings and grep:
strings -e l *.msg | grep pattern
The -e l (that's a small L) converts from UTF-16.
This will only work if you can grep the data you need from the file (i.e. all required lines contain a standard string or pattern).
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I have an excel spreadsheet that is indefinitely code heavy, but only in Excel coding, not VBA, 90% of all text has code one form or another wrapped in it, around it or is created by it.
Is there a limitation of how much code can be written into a page before it starts to show itself as "normal text" even though it has a "=" before it?
=IF(ROW($AI1)>$AJ$2, "", INDEX(AB$4:AB$23, SMALL(IF(AA$4:AA$23=Criteria, ROW($AA$4:$AA$23), ""), ROW($AI1))))
That is the code, it shows up as text even though the field is shown as "General" for it's formatting, now mind you I have over 400 fields integrated with code itself. It is pretty much a calendar, and soon to be one that updates specific fields on a daily basis upon starting the sheet up. Or so it my hope.
But when I enter the code above, the sheet doesn't accept it as code, but as text so the entire script is shown, instead of the field with the data it is meant to show instead.
Is this a bug in Microsoft Excel, or is there an actual limitation of what Excel can handle per sheet for code? I can't imagine I found it, because this sheet is far from complete, and I've seen more complex ones out there...
Try pressing Control+Accent Grave (Cntl+`). If you're in formula view mode, you'll see formulas instead of values.