I don't know if this is a Sesame question or an Excel question, but here goes:

I would like to export some customer data out of Sesame into an Excel spreadsheet.  I transition it through a .csv file, which I then open in Excel.  The problem is that many of our customers are in New England, where Zip Codes begin with the digit Zero.  In Sesame the field is formatted as Text.  The data looks fine in the .csv, for example "01887", however, when Excel opens the file the program interprets the data as numerical, tosses the leading zero, and fills the cell with "1887".  Re-formatting the cell as text does not restore the zero, as by this time it has been eliminated completely.

What I've been doing to get around this is to open the .csv file in a text editor and do a "replace all" of "0 with "'0.  Excel interprets the added apostrophe as an indicator that the value is left-justified text.  This extra editing, frankly, is a pain in the butt, and at this point I'm not sure if the apostrophe is actually being stored with the value in Excel.  If it is, it may prove to be a problem if I use the data in some other application, which is likely to happen.

Is there a cleaner way to transition Sesame data into Excel, one that will retain the text formatting?

ProudPoppy is right about what to do.

Excel is trying to be "smart". When importing, unless you specify otherwise, it looks at the values in the first few rows of data to try to determine what type of data is in each column. It usually does pretty well, but Zip codes can trick it into thinking the column contains numbers, especially if none of the ones with leading zeros appear in the first few rows.