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CSV Download Data Changed/Missing

  • September 12, 2020
  • 5 replies
  • 123 views

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When I am downloading a .csv file from my base when opening the file in Microsoft Excel some of the data is missing/changed. The field that is having the issue is a linked field that lists numbers from an autonumber field. It seems that after 5 sets of 3 digit numbers the numbers just change to zeros. I have attached photos of the data from Airtable and what I am seeing in Excel.

Best answer by Dillon_Jamison

Change your Excel field to a text field, and see what happens.


After doing some researching on Excel, I figured out that Excel has a limit of 15 significant numbers and any number after that will be a 0. Changing the field type to text type changes the data to scientific notation messing the data up even further. From what I understand if the file was changed to a text field before entering the data this method would work, but since the data is already there it can’t be fixed. I ended up just adding a letter to my data sets (by adding a new column with a formula field that has the autonumbers plus a letter {Split #}&“R” ) so it would automatically recognize the data as text rather than a number.

5 replies

ScottWorld
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  • Genius
  • 9808 replies
  • September 12, 2020

Change your Excel field to a text field, and see what happens.


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  • Author
  • New Participant
  • 1 reply
  • Answer
  • September 12, 2020

Change your Excel field to a text field, and see what happens.


After doing some researching on Excel, I figured out that Excel has a limit of 15 significant numbers and any number after that will be a 0. Changing the field type to text type changes the data to scientific notation messing the data up even further. From what I understand if the file was changed to a text field before entering the data this method would work, but since the data is already there it can’t be fixed. I ended up just adding a letter to my data sets (by adding a new column with a formula field that has the autonumbers plus a letter {Split #}&“R” ) so it would automatically recognize the data as text rather than a number.


Forum|alt.badge.img+19
  • Inspiring
  • 3263 replies
  • September 12, 2020

After doing some researching on Excel, I figured out that Excel has a limit of 15 significant numbers and any number after that will be a 0. Changing the field type to text type changes the data to scientific notation messing the data up even further. From what I understand if the file was changed to a text field before entering the data this method would work, but since the data is already there it can’t be fixed. I ended up just adding a letter to my data sets (by adding a new column with a formula field that has the autonumbers plus a letter {Split #}&“R” ) so it would automatically recognize the data as text rather than a number.


There’s also the floating point bug in Airtable to be mindful of.


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  • Inspiring
  • 20 replies
  • April 30, 2023

It appears that Airtable adds a BOM (BYTE ORDER MARK) to the beginning of the CSV file that then drops any leading zeros from my Serial Number field in the Excel file.  Is there a different version of CSV download that would keep the leading zeros?

 


dilipborad
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  • Brainy
  • 235 replies
  • May 25, 2025

Had the same kind of issue when importing serials Excel just zeroed them out. Honestly, tricking it with text formatting felt like using an Acne Fighting Kit on a data rash.

Another spam content, Used a very great trick, content bit related to topic and then add promotion link.