I recently had a hard time explaining to a coworker that the “Increase number of decimals” button in Excel doesn’t work if you already exported to a CSV with only a decimal of precision. It worked on their end because they had the excel file, but I had the CSV. I managed to come up with a clever and innovative solution to the problem though; I gave up and worked on something else.
Maybe, by why wouldn’t Excel let uou increase the number of digits in a CSV? The data is currently in Excel, and more digits isn’t incompatible with the CSV format.
As soon as you convert from an .XLS file to a .CSV file, the data and sig figs used to display that data are saved while the math formulas used to calculate that data are erased.
This means that when you try to go from .CSV to .XLS, Excel doesn’t know the original formula that created the data to then be able to display more decimal points. The formula is absolutely necessary to change sig figs of displayed data.
The only other way I can think of that would allow one to change sig figs in .CSV data is if the .XLS file was converted with like the maximum number of sig figs displayed, or let’s say 10-20. Then in a .CSV, you can modify the sig figs to something less, like 0-20.
But I want to say that if you save that .CSV file after the sig fig change, where you original converted it with 10-20 sig figs but then changed them to 0-20, the .CSV overwrites the data and you lose the sig figs that you concatenated.
Result: adding decimal points in a .CSV isn’t possible.
I recently had a hard time explaining to a coworker that the “Increase number of decimals” button in Excel doesn’t work if you already exported to a CSV with only a decimal of precision. It worked on their end because they had the excel file, but I had the CSV. I managed to come up with a clever and innovative solution to the problem though; I gave up and worked on something else.
There ya go.
Yeah sucks when he’s the only guy giving you tasks and what else are you going to do?
Excel is pretty awful software.
10-15 years ago it was good, but it just isn’t anymore.
Considering it is being saved in another format, I’d hardly consider this an excel problem.
CSV has existed since before personal computers, much less Microsoft office.
Maybe, by why wouldn’t Excel let uou increase the number of digits in a CSV? The data is currently in Excel, and more digits isn’t incompatible with the CSV format.
That’s actually pretty terrible. Can you load the csv and then save it again as an xls? Once it’s loaded, why does it care what the source format was?
As soon as you convert from an .XLS file to a .CSV file, the data and sig figs used to display that data are saved while the math formulas used to calculate that data are erased.
This means that when you try to go from .CSV to .XLS, Excel doesn’t know the original formula that created the data to then be able to display more decimal points. The formula is absolutely necessary to change sig figs of displayed data.
The only other way I can think of that would allow one to change sig figs in .CSV data is if the .XLS file was converted with like the maximum number of sig figs displayed, or let’s say 10-20. Then in a .CSV, you can modify the sig figs to something less, like 0-20.
But I want to say that if you save that .CSV file after the sig fig change, where you original converted it with 10-20 sig figs but then changed them to 0-20, the .CSV overwrites the data and you lose the sig figs that you concatenated.
Result: adding decimal points in a .CSV isn’t possible.
the original doc has the math, the csv only has the pre-calculated numbers
you cant recover lost data by just resaving in another format lol
I think you misunderstood the problem.
Is the problem that someone else is wrong and we want to relish in the agony of dealing with it?