Excel losing number format when converting to csv

I am involved in a project currently which requires multiple xls files to be saved in csv format for ftp-ing to a server in the US. One of the spreadsheet columns contains a long integer which is held in a General number format, but appears in the resulting csv files in scientific notation (e.g. 5.01225E+12). A lot of these files are ending up corrupted on the ftp server with all the integer values appearing as 05012250000000 whatever their starting value was.

According to a Microsoft knowledge article, storing the number in the General format should cure this known issue, but the values are already in this format. Anyone know of a workaround? Currently using Excel 2002 running under Windows XP.

Cheers!

I work with many data files, I find that the most relieable is tab-delimited. Mainly because it forces the import wizard to open when you import into Excel or Other. From there you can force all fields to the "Text" format.

1. Instead of double clicking to re-open into Excel or other. Open it by going to File/Open. This may bring up the IMport Wizard.

2. Store all numbers as "Text", unless you still have more calculations to do.

3. Might try Export out as Tab-Delimited Text.