@Tsaukpaetra said in The Official Status Thread:
Try explaining the concept of magical numbers to people who can't write formulas in Excel.
"Do not open this file in Excel--it won't look right. You have to use Notepad". Bonus: you get to show them that the leading zeroes really aren't gone like they keep insisting. I've been having that conversation regularly for at least 15 years.
"Yes, I know you normally use Excel. Just trust me and use Notepad. Excel lies to you."
If you're lucky, you get to skip "yes, I can modify the file so Excel doesn't strip the leading zeroes, but then the import won't be able to process it. Yes, I know that's awful. It's Microsoft's fault, though. They're trying to be helpful, and usually that is, but this is a case where Excel does the wrong thing." If you're feeling brave you can try to have them import the file instead, so you can specify data types on the columns. I don't bother when Notepad works.