csv - Stop Excel from automatically converting certain text values to dates

Question

Does anyone happen to know if there is a token I can add to my csv for a certain field so Excel doesn't try to convert it to a date?

I'm trying to write a .csv file from my application and one of the values happens to look enough like a date that Excel is automatically converting it from text to a date. I've tried putting all of my text fields (including the one that looks like a date) within double quotes, but that has no effect.

Answer 1

I have found that putting an '=' before the double quotes will accomplish what you want. It forces the data to be text.

eg. ="2008-10-03",="more text"

EDIT (according to other posts): because of the Excel 2007 bug noted by Jeffiekins one should use the solution proposed by Andrew: "=""2008-10-03"""