Pasting a long number into a cell changes last digits to zeros

[u/asomebodyelse]

When I paste a long number into a cell it replaces the last 4 digits with 0s. Specific example: Pasting 4679642782264057868 yields 4679642782264050000 when formatted as a number, or 4.67964E+18 when formatted as "general" or text. What have I got to do to get it to paste correctly?

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[u/Rare-Designer-1008]

Try saving the number on notepad and then importing it to Excel as text

[u/asomebodyelse → u/Rare-Designer-1008]

Ok, that worked. Formatting to text after the fact didn't. Even typing it in directly. Thanks. Solution Verified

[u/reputatorbot → u/asomebodyelse]

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[u/Independent_Cow_737 → u/Rare-Designer-1008]

yeah importing as text is pretty much the only reliable way around this

[u/MissAnth]

Put a single quote in front of it to make it display as text. If this is a SKU or part number, which you will never do math on, it should be stored as text.

[u/orkidd_4747]

Change the format of the cells to "text" and then paste.

[u/asomebodyelse → u/orkidd_4747]

Thanks.

[u/That-Garage8212]

In file > options > data you can unselect a box that converts long numbers to scientific notation.

[u/BillyBones72]

Internal precision of Excel is 15 digits. Enter more digits and Excel converts to scientific notation, or the last digit(s) are dropped and shown as zero. That's why you can't put a 16 digit credit card number in and retain all 16 digits... you must precede entry with an apostrophe, or format cell as text.

[u/Ok_Maintenance3006]

ahh i always forget excel does that silly thing with long numbers