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Documentation Index

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When Microsoft Excel imports a CSV (comma separated values) file, if a value in the file starts with a hyphen, Excel assumes that that value is a formula. This causes Excel to display “#NAME” in the cell instead of the text. As an example, let’s assume we have a CSV file with three columns. These columns are the employee’s name, age, and their hobbies. Below is a sample of what that data might look like in a CSV file. Notice that the list of hobbies for Bill Smith start with a hyphen. When we open this file in Excel, we see the following: To keep this from happening, instead of opening the file in Excel, we need to use the From Text/CSV data import function within Excel. This is found on the Data tab of the ribbon menu bar. The Excel data import engine will evaluate each cell in the CSV to determine the most appropriate data type for each column. As you can see below, the data import shows the text in the third column instead of #NAME for Bill Smith’s hobbies. Simply click the Load button at the bottom of this import screen to import the data into Excel.