How to stop Excel deleting leading zeros(SSRS -> Excel load)

SQLServerCentral is supported by Red Gate Software Ltd.

Popular Topics

Home

Members

Calendar

Who's On

Home » Reporting Services » Reporting Services 2008 Development » How to stop Excel deleting leading zeros(SSRS...

How to stop Excel deleting leading zeros(SSRS -> Excel load)

Rate Topic

Display Mode

Topic Options

Author

Message

Saintmount.Sql

Posted Tuesday, March 05, 2013 2:11 PM

SSC Rookie

Group: General Forum Members
Last Login: Thursday, April 04, 2013 9:03 AM
Points: 28, Visits: 411

HI,
I've few issues after exporting the SSRS report to Excel Mode.

How do i stop Excel from deleting leading zeros permanently and not having to change the number type.

While clicking Excel cel,. value changed to 123 from 00123. How do prevent the change of value (00123 -> 123)

Also is there a way to stop Excel from change long numbers eg. 321312321303 to 3.21E+10.

Thanks,
J

Post #1427037

Lowell

Posted Tuesday, March 05, 2013 2:41 PM

SSChampion

Group: General Forum Members
Last Login: Today @ 5:14 PM
Points: 11,648, Visits: 27,758

excel automatically treats anything that looks like a number as a number, dates as dates, etc
I believe you'd have to change you report of the data to explicitly place a single quote in the field, which is how Excel knows to override the behavior and treat the value as text...
that's annoying, because you have to do something like this:

SELECT
'''' + TheCode As TheCode,
'''' + '00123' As TheValue,
'''' + CONVERT(VARCHAR,321312321303) As TheDecimal
FROM YourTable

Lowell

--There is no spoon, and there's no default ORDER BY in sql server either.
Actually, Common Sense is so rare, it should be considered a Superpower. --my son

Post #1427043

Saintmount.Sql

Posted Tuesday, March 05, 2013 3:22 PM

SSC Rookie

Group: General Forum Members
Last Login: Thursday, April 04, 2013 9:03 AM
Points: 28, Visits: 411

Thanks, when I use this option, Excel values are precedes with ' code.
Is any work around to remove the ' code in reporting side.

Ty
J

Post #1427057

mikehunsaker

Posted Wednesday, March 20, 2013 6:25 AM

SSC Rookie

Group: General Forum Members
Last Login: Tuesday, April 30, 2013 11:32 AM
Points: 26, Visits: 178

I've had this problem for years with web application development. Adding a single apostrophe (') is the best option. Unfortunately, Excel will always attempt to format the data based on the value. Anything that looks like a number will automatically be formatted as a number; anything that looks like a date will be formatted like a date; etc... You will have to add a symbol (apostrophe, dash, etc...) in front of the number so that Excel thinks the value is plain text.

The option that I use is to do nothing. If the spreadsheet is going to an end-user, I make sure they understand how to format the data. So they manually format the column to show the leading zeros. The reason that I went with this option is for calculation purposes. If the end-user needs to perform a calculation on the values, it's very difficult when the value has a leading symbol. However, if you do not need to perform a calculation on the value, adding a leading symbol might be your best option.

HTH.

Mike

Post #1433168

Koen Verbeeck

Posted Wednesday, March 20, 2013 3:57 PM

SSCrazy Eights

Group: General Forum Members
Last Login: Today @ 2:11 AM
Points: 9,378, Visits: 6,473

Saintmount.Sql (3/5/2013)

Thanks, when I use this option, Excel values are precedes with ' code.
Is any work around to remove the ' code in reporting side.

Ty
J

If time is on your side you could create expressions based on the rendering format.

Conditional report rendering based on render formats for SSRS Reports

How to post forum questions.
Need an answer? No, you need a question.
What’s the deal with Excel & SSIS?

Member of LinkedIn. My blog at LessThanDot.

MCSA SQL Server 2012 - MCSE Business Intelligence

Post #1433530

mikehunsaker

Posted Tuesday, March 26, 2013 6:53 AM

SSC Rookie

Group: General Forum Members
Last Login: Tuesday, April 30, 2013 11:32 AM
Points: 26, Visits: 178

Hey J -

Just curious... how did you solve this?

Mike

Post #1435447

« Prev Topic | Next Topic »

Permissions