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When I paste data with leading zeroes to a newly-opened blank Excel document, it strips out all leading zeroes.

Is there a way for me to open up a new instance of Excel (not from a template, I usually open up Excel by pressing Win+R keys and then typing Excel) with all cells formatted as text rather than general?

I tried having a template, but it's way too many mouse clicks.

Using Office 2007.

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2 Answers 2

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Presumably you want to do this some of the time and not all of the time.

If that is so,

  • create a new spreadsheet
  • format all its cells to text
  • save it (as read only) with a name such as "Excel-Text"
  • Put it, or a shortcut to it, to wherever you like to launch things from

and just launch it when you need it

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  • Perhaps add to this process that one must do a "Save As..." each time to save the new document to a new file, rather than over-write the template.
    – qxotk
    Commented Dec 16, 2009 at 20:55
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    That is right - hence the suggestion to save as "Read Only" which will force a "Save as"
    – Kije
    Commented Dec 16, 2009 at 20:59
  • Great idea, why didn't I think of that? :) Read-only feature really works well for this. Thanks!
    – Eugene
    Commented Dec 17, 2009 at 19:51
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To build on what Kije suggested, save your template file as "book.xlt". This is the default template for new Excel files. (Like Word's normal.dot file) Book.xlt needs to go in the XLSTART directory of either your user profile, or of the excel install itself. Exact locations vary based on OS and Office version. I have one in C:\users\MyName\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Excel and C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\ for Windows7 and Office2007.

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  • As I said in the answer -- I tried templates, but then I have to create a new Excel document from template, select the template (and scroll if I have too many templates), then create new document. That's too many clicks.
    – Eugene
    Commented Dec 17, 2009 at 19:51
  • It should be noted that book.xlt is the default template. If saved in the appropriate place, ALL new documents are of that format, even if you don't explicitly choose a template.
    – Christopher Karel
    Commented Dec 17, 2009 at 23:27
  • Ah, gotcha, sorry, I wasn't paying attention. This was exactly what I wanted, but I like Kije's answer better because it provides a better flexibility for me. I can make sure other user's will not have issues using my computer and at the same time I can have the text spreadsheet in one additional mouse click. Thank you.
    – Eugene
    Commented Dec 21, 2009 at 18:55

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