Supplier: How do I maintain leading zeros on a .csv download?

Tom Mullen Updated by Tom Mullen

How do I maintain leading zeros on a .csv download?

When completing a product or price upload you may be providing products which contain leading zeros. This can be problematic as reporting is provided in .csv format and if you do not handle the file correctly your leading zeros can be lost.

Why do we use .csv?

  • Performance - we can generate reporting much quicker when put into .csv format vs .xls or .xlsx.
  • File Size - If we were to present the exports in .xls or .xlsx this vastly reduces the number of rows a user could upload as these file types have limits.

How do you maintain your leading zeros?

  1. Download the .csv file but do not open it.
  2. Rename the file to the format of .txt
  3. Open the text file using excel. Using the text import wizard, mark that it is comma separated and click next:
  4. Format your targeted column (e.g. catalogue number) to text:
  5. Click Finish. The leading zeros will be retained:

How did we do?

Supplier: How do I amend a catalogue number?

Supplier: eClass codes

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