Long numbers in a spreadsheet

What it is

The spreadsheet keeps all the digits of long whole numbers (orders, article numbers and other identifiers) when they are typed, pasted from another spreadsheet or imported from XLSX. The General and Text formats show the number in full, as ordinary digits, without an abbreviation such as E+18.

How to use it

1. Type or paste the numbers in the usual way. There is no need to choose the text format in advance.
2. In Number format, you can switch between Number and Text: the digits of the number are kept.
3. If the number does not fit, widen the column.
4. Copying and export to XLSX keep the whole number.

Limits

• A whole number greater than 9 007 199 254 740 991 in absolute value is stored as an identifier, not as a number for calculations. Leading zeros are kept. Formulas that explicitly turn such text into a number calculate with ordinary precision.
• Ordinary integers, fractions, percentages and formulas work as before.
• Abbreviated notation with E is expanded to the full form, for both large and small numbers. A custom format 0.00E+00 still shows numbers in scientific notation.
• If a number was already rounded during an earlier paste, changing the format shows the full record of what was saved. The lost digits cannot be recovered. The text length limit in a cell is unchanged.
• There is no exact arithmetic with long numbers. The calculation of formulas has not changed.

If something goes wrong

What you see on the screen	Why	What to do
Zeros instead of the last digits in a number	The number was rounded before this fix	Copy the original cells again and replace the values
A number was pasted rounded	The source itself gave the rounded E notation	Take the number from a source where it is stored in full
The number is not fully visible	The column is narrow	Widen the column