RE: INSERT into Excel leaves values as text

SSC Guru

Points: 186127

November 14, 2007 at 2:50 am

Hi smv

I'm using linked spreadsheets and doing updates, but the principle is probably the same - use a template spreadsheet and ensure that the columns you want numeric, are formatted as the correct numeric type. Provided that the first 8 values in a column are numeric, the driver will continue to write numeric values in the rest. I've got sp's for a) copying/renaming template to target directory and b) linking to a spreadsheet$worksheet, and sample code for doing updates - will post if you wish. It's been used for data migrations and will require tweaking and tidying up if you're working in a production environment.

Incidentally, using this method allows you to mimic a VLOOKUP with considerably more flexibility than Excel offers, e.g. UPDATE FROM with a JOINed source.

Cheers

ChrisM

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