excel zip codes

[bigdan]

howdy all,

some excel files are giving me a bit of a headache.

when i import zipcodes (into fm7) on some files the first zero will drop out. i tried opening the excel file and making sure that the zero's were there and then tried switching the column format around a couple times but that didn't seem to work. anybody have this problem? i was able to make a script to put them back but i figure i'm missing somethin'.

thanks!

big dan

[Ted S]

I just tried this on a limited set of zip codes and the outcome was successful. I did have to format the column in Excel to be TEXT. The default was GENERAL and that seems to drop leading zeros.

[QuinTech]

Also, make sure the FM field is text. From a programmatic perspective, a Zip code is actually text, because there's no real meaning in, say, Zip code * 2, or inequality operators -- anything we normally associate with numbers is useless for Zip codes.

Jerry

[bigdan]

thanks for the quick posts. i just went into one of the excel files and when i switch the format to text the first 0 disapears. perhaps it's a problem with the way i received the excel file. . .

[QuinTech]

You could also use an Excel formula to create a new column, and then import that column:

=Concatenate("0",A1)

Using whatever cell you have the Zip code in instead of A1.

J