How to keep/remove leading zeros in an Excel file

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Issue:

In some cases, when orders or other reports are exported, leading zeros are automatically removed from the spreadsheet when in fact, those zeros are necessary and should not be removed. For example, many zip codes in the state of New Jersey begin with 0, so those are needed.

Solution:

There's a setting in Excel that determines if leading zeros are automatically removed or not.

For Windows, this setting is found by clicking on File > Options > Data > and "remove leading zeros and convert to a number" can be checked or unchecked as necessary.

For Mac, this setting is found by clicking on Excel in the top navigation > Preferences > Edit > and "remove leading zeros and convert to a number" can be checked or unchecked as necessary.

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