# Excel 2007 -- Saving file as text

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-2007-saving-file-as-text/522841>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [December 28, 2009, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-2007-saving-file-as-text/522841 "2009-12-28T21:28:36Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\
**Post date:** [December 29, 2009, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-2007-saving-file-as-text/522841/21 "2009-12-29T01:29:34Z")

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I’m packing it in for the night.

Thanks for all of the help so far! 🙂

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**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\
**Post date:** [December 29, 2009, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-2007-saving-file-as-text/522841/22 "2009-12-29T03:34:25Z")

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Save it as txt not prn which is limited to 240 characters. You can save it to notepad as well. Notepad never fucks up input. I sometimes use it to get stuff from Oracle to Excel.

I think a minus sign (-) for the first 0 will do the format.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\
**Post date:** [December 29, 2009, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-2007-saving-file-as-text/522841/23 "2009-12-29T03:36:00Z")

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Save it to notepad? Do you mean save as Tab delimited text?

I’ll try the minus sign tomorrow.

Thanks,

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\
**Post date:** [December 29, 2009, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-2007-saving-file-as-text/522841/24 "2009-12-29T03:39:40Z")

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I meant just copy the column we have created and paste it into Notepad.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\
**Post date:** [December 29, 2009, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-2007-saving-file-as-text/522841/25 "2009-12-29T03:43:46Z")

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Ah. Gotcha.

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