Excel is stripping leading 0’s from CSV files

autocorrectcsvdataformatexcel

It believe that Excel is stripping leading 0s. I was told that updating the column format to text during the export will fix this and to modify Excel output (coming from "ProofAndTracking actionIpromoteuAutomation" file, yet I can't find this file or how to access where the excel formatting code is generated).

I've never worked with Excel. I tried this, but it seems to be a local fix:
http://excelribbon.tips.net/T010262_Handling_Leading_Zeros_in_CSV_Files.html
Could someone point me in the right direction to start?

I've researched these answers How to stop the leading 0's from being stripped off when exporting to excel from a datatable? and Export Excel : Avoid stripping the leading zeros
Thanks in advance!

Here is the function I believe is causing the problem, but not sure yet how to format columns to text here. /*
* format and send order and tracking info (via Excel spreadsheet) for the day for ipromoteu (150837)
*/

public function actionIpromoteuAutomation() {
    $ordersGroup1 = $this->getIpromoteuProof();
    $ordersGroup2 = $this->getIpromoteuProofHistory();
    $orders = array_merge($ordersGroup1, $ordersGroup2);
    $fileName = 'Hit Promo Order Tracking ' . date('m-d-Y');
    $this->_export($orders, $fileName);
    $fileName = $fileName . '.xls';
    $toIPROMOTEU = array(//email to be sent to HR when request is submitted
        'body' => 'Attached, please find the Excel spreadsheet containing'
        . ' order details for orders on ' . date('m/d/Y') . '.',
        'from_email' => 'donotreply@hitpromo.net',
        'from_name' => 'Hit Promotional Products',
        'subject' => 'Order Tracking Information - ' . date('m/d/Y'),
        'to_emails' => 'orders@ipromoteu.com',
        'attachments' => array(array('path' => Yii::app()->basePath . '/../tmp/' . $fileName, 'filename' => $fileName)),
    );
    Hit::email((object) $toIPROMOTEU);

    $this->logForDeveloper('Order records sent to iPromoteU for '. date('m/d/Y'));
}

private function _export($data, $fileName, $format = 'excel', $output = false) {
    // get a reference to the path of PHPExcel classes
    $phpExcelPath = Yii::getPathOfAlias('ext.phpexcel');

    // Turn off our yii library autoload
    spl_autoload_unregister(array('YiiBase', 'autoload'));
    include($phpExcelPath . DIRECTORY_SEPARATOR . 'PHPExcel.php');

    // Create new PHPExcel object
    $objPHPExcel = new PHPExcel();

    if ($format == 'excel') {
        // Set properties
        $objPHPExcel->getProperties()->setCreator(Yii::app()->user->name)
                ->setLastModifiedBy(Yii::app()->user->name)
                ->setTitle('Order Tracking Report');
    }

    $styleArray = array(
        'font' => array(
            'bold' => true,
            'underline' => true,
        )
    );
    $objPHPExcel->setActiveSheetIndex(0);
    $sheet = $objPHPExcel->getActiveSheet();

    for ($rowCounter = 0; $rowCounter < sizeof($data); $rowCounter++) {
        $sheet->getStyle("A" . ($rowCounter + 1))->getAlignment()->setHorizontal(PHPExcel_Style_Alignment::HORIZONTAL_LEFT);
        $sheet->getStyle("B" . ($rowCounter + 1))->getAlignment()->setHorizontal(PHPExcel_Style_Alignment::HORIZONTAL_LEFT);
        $sheet->getStyle("C" . ($rowCounter + 1))->getAlignment()->setHorizontal(PHPExcel_Style_Alignment::HORIZONTAL_LEFT);
        $sheet->setCellValue("A" . ($rowCounter + 1), date('m/d/Y', strtotime($data[$rowCounter]['date'])));
        //$sheet->setCellValue("A".($rowCounter+1), $data[$rowCounter]['date']);
        if ($data[$rowCounter]['fedex_tracking'] != '')
            $sheet->setCellValue("B" . ($rowCounter + 1), $data[$rowCounter]['fedex_tracking']);
        else
            $sheet->setCellValue("B" . ($rowCounter + 1), $data[$rowCounter]['other_tracking']);
        $sheet->setCellValue("C" . ($rowCounter + 1), $data[$rowCounter]['sales_order_number']);
        $sheet->getStyle("B" . ($rowCounter + 1))->getNumberFormat()->setFormatCode(PHPExcel_Style_NumberFormat::FORMAT_NUMBER);
    }

    $sheet->setCellValue("A1", "DATE")
            ->setCellValue("B1", "TRACKING")
            ->setCellValue("C1", "PO NUMBER")
            ->getStyle("A1:C1")->applyFromArray($styleArray);

    ////Set the column widths
    $sheet->getColumnDimension("A")->setWidth(25);
    $sheet->getColumnDimension("B")->setWidth(25);
    $sheet->getColumnDimension("C")->setWidth(25);
    // Rename sheet
    $objPHPExcel->getActiveSheet()->setTitle('Order Tracking Report');

    // Set active sheet index to the first sheet,
    // so Excel opens this as the first sheet
    $objPHPExcel->setActiveSheetIndex(0);

    $fileName = $fileName . ($format == 'excel' ? '.xls' : '.csv');

    $objWriter = PHPExcel_IOFactory::createWriter($objPHPExcel, 'Excel5');
    $path = Yii::app()->basePath . '/../tmp/' . $fileName;
    $objWriter->save($path);

    // Once we have finished using the library, give back the
    // power to Yii...
    spl_autoload_register(array('YiiBase', 'autoload'));
}

public function getIpromoteuProof() {
    $date = date('Ymd');
    $db2params = Yii::app()->params['db2params'];
    $db = Zend_Db::factory('Db2', $db2params);
    $select = $db->select()
            ->from(
                    // table
                    array('t' => 'WBPIPRAE'),
                    // columns
                    array(
                'sales_order_number' => 'TRIM(WAESPO#)',
                    ),
                    // schema
                    $db2params['schemas']['hitdta'])
            ->joinLeft(
                    // table
                    array('f' => 'MFD1MD'), 'CONCAT(TRIM(WAEORD#),RIGHT(TRIM(MDORDR),3))=TRIM(MDORDR)',
                    // columns
                    array(
                'fedex_tracking' => 'TRIM(MDFTRK)',
                'other_tracking' => 'TRIM(MDFBRC)',
                'date' => 'TRIM(MDUPDT)',
                    ),
                    // schema
                    $db2params['schemas']['varfil'])
            ->where("MDUPDT = '" . $date . "'")
            ->where("WAEIVKY='150837'")
            ->order('sales_order_number')
            ->distinct(true);

    $stmt = $db->query($select);
    $orders = $stmt->fetchAll();
    return $orders;
}

Best Answer

OK, Excel can create the csv columns as text but the issue is with the import.

When Excel opens csv files it 'helpfully' converts anything that looks like a number to a number, stripping leading zero's.

First make sure Excel is exporting it as it should, open the file in a text editor and check the leading zero is present.

You will probably have to change how the file is imported. Instead of them just double clicking the csv file, they need to run through the data import wizard:

Import 'From Text'

From Text

Select Delimited

Make sure comma is ticked

Comma separator

Select column as text

Select text

This should resolve the problem on the other side.

Another alternative is to add a single apostrophe ' before the numbers, however if they use macros/software to interact with the file this might break that.

Edit

After looking at the PHP code (I can't test) you might be able to change the line:

$sheet->getStyle("B" . ($rowCounter + 1))->getNumberFormat()->setFormatCode(PHPExcel_Style_NumberFormat::FORMAT_NUMBER);

To:

$sheet->getStyle("B" . ($rowCounter + 1))->getNumberFormat()->setFormatCode('000000000000'); // With however many zero's you need to keep

This however may still get removed when you export as it's still technically a number and formatting will be removed.

Related Solutions

C# – How to create an Excel (.XLS and .XLSX) file in C# without installing Microsoft Office

You can use a library called ExcelLibrary. It's a free, open source library posted on Google Code:

ExcelLibrary

This looks to be a port of the PHP ExcelWriter that you mentioned above. It will not write to the new .xlsx format yet, but they are working on adding that functionality in.

It's very simple, small and easy to use. Plus it has a DataSetHelper that lets you use DataSets and DataTables to easily work with Excel data.

ExcelLibrary seems to still only work for the older Excel format (.xls files), but may be adding support in the future for newer 2007/2010 formats.

You can also use EPPlus, which works only for Excel 2007/2010 format files (.xlsx files). There's also NPOI which works with both.

There are a few known bugs with each library as noted in the comments. In all, EPPlus seems to be the best choice as time goes on. It seems to be more actively updated and documented as well.

Also, as noted by @АртёмЦарионов below, EPPlus has support for Pivot Tables and ExcelLibrary may have some support (Pivot table issue in ExcelLibrary)

Here are a couple links for quick reference:
ExcelLibrary - GNU Lesser GPL
EPPlus - GNU (LGPL) - No longer maintained
EPPlus 5 - Polyform Noncommercial - Starting May 2020
NPOI - Apache License

Here some example code for ExcelLibrary:

Here is an example taking data from a database and creating a workbook from it. Note that the ExcelLibrary code is the single line at the bottom:

//Create the data set and table
DataSet ds = new DataSet("New_DataSet");
DataTable dt = new DataTable("New_DataTable");

//Set the locale for each
ds.Locale = System.Threading.Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture;
dt.Locale = System.Threading.Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture;

//Open a DB connection (in this example with OleDB)
OleDbConnection con = new OleDbConnection(dbConnectionString);
con.Open();

//Create a query and fill the data table with the data from the DB
string sql = "SELECT Whatever FROM MyDBTable;";
OleDbCommand cmd = new OleDbCommand(sql, con);
OleDbDataAdapter adptr = new OleDbDataAdapter();

adptr.SelectCommand = cmd;
adptr.Fill(dt);
con.Close();

//Add the table to the data set
ds.Tables.Add(dt);

//Here's the easy part. Create the Excel worksheet from the data set
ExcelLibrary.DataSetHelper.CreateWorkbook("MyExcelFile.xls", ds);

Creating the Excel file is as easy as that. You can also manually create Excel files, but the above functionality is what really impressed me.

Excel – Stop Excel from automatically converting certain text values to dates

I have found that putting an '=' before the double quotes will accomplish what you want. It forces the data to be text.

eg. ="2008-10-03",="more text"

EDIT (according to other posts): because of the Excel 2007 bug noted by Jeffiekins one should use the solution proposed by Andrew: "=""2008-10-03"""

Best Answer

Related Solutions

C# – How to create an Excel (.XLS and .XLSX) file in C# without installing Microsoft Office

Excel – Stop Excel from automatically converting certain text values to dates

Related Topic