Ensuring a SQL Server column copies as text to an Excel column

Posted February 1, 2015 in excel sql-server
Reading time: 1 minute

The problem arises when you have a column with character strings that look like numbers. Looking like a number isn’t a problem in and of itself, unless the value starts with the character “0”. Excel will try to treat the column’s values as a number, and therefore eliminate any leading 0s.

The trick is to set up the column properties in the spreadsheet before you copy the values into it.

  1. Open a new Excel spreadsheet
  2. Find the column that corresponds to the SQL column with string data that looks like number data
  3. Right-click on the column and select “Format Cells…”
  4. On the Number tab, select Text as the Category
  5. Click OK
  6. Back in SSMS, select the top-right corner of the grid, then right-click it
  7. Select “Copy with Headers”
  8. In Excel, paste the data into the spreadsheet

Now the column should properly maintain any leading 0s on the strings-that-look-like-numbers.

(I rarely need to do this, but when I do, I inevitably end up searching online for the solution. May as well document it here so that I can find it when I need it.)



Comments

comments powered by Disqus