Writing TO an Excel file problem

[johnsonj]

Does anyone know how to write to an Excel file from a database and keeping all the entries as strings? Currently, the script I've written will write everything to the spreadsheet, but any number with more than 8 digits will be written along the lines of "12345678E+9". Is there a way around this without opening the .xls file and reformatting the info manually?

[Anon]

Hello,

may be using quotes ?

(ie, trying to output '12345' instead
of 12345 (or "12345" also) )

[dstockto]

You can specify something in Excel to be a string by putting a single quote "'" in front of the string. Try doing that. You'll probably have to escape the single quote with a \ though.

Dave

[johnsonj]

It does work in a way, but the problem is that the people I'm creating this little application for are completely computer illiterate (They're the sort of people who look for an "ANY" key when prompted to "Press any key"), and they don't want to go through the trouble of removing all the single quotes when they download the Excel file. But it DOES work - so thank you!

[dstockto]

They shouldn't need to remove anything when they download the file. I am pretty sure Excel uses the single quote to designate strings.

Dave