Stop auto correction of number into a date

"I also have an issue with Excel formatting this number 795721170759 to 7.95721E+11; anyone know what this is converting to? I think someone would have to search pretty long and hard to find someone using that conversion...probably none are using it."

Um, scientists quite often use scientific notation in Excel.

Also, chemists often use Chemical Abstract Registry Numbers (CAS numbers, for short). Every chemical has a unique identifier assigned to it, in the format ######-00-00 (to use Excel's number formatting convention). You can probably see where I'm going with this: when I import a list of CAS numbers into Excel from a .csv or other external source, between 5 and 10% of the CAS numbers get reformatted. Example: 2404-03-7 gets reformatted to 3/7/2024. As noted earlier, the value placed in the cell isn't just reformatted, it is actually changed to a date integer, making reversion impossible.

This all boils down to a simple need for an option to turn off all format conversions on import. It's such a simple fix that I'm continually amazed that MS doesn't just do it. How hard can it be?

OK.  This programme has the same questions being asked about the same bugs, for YEARS.  None are fixed.  Advanced users are fobbed off by stupid inane insulting replies from so-called "experts".  It takes days, weeks, months for even advanced users to figure out how to manually fix the results of major and critical defects such as reformatting cells when text is pasted that 90% of the world doesn't use as dates or calculations, (how do you paste with an asterisk in front duh), reversing the order of dates dictated into it, changing word cells to 5 rows with different borders on each cell then malfunctioning when you try to search/replace them...  And which will allow simple things such as customised highlighting of active cell/row/column... or hanging indenting of text.  The answer is clearly to find better software.  Excel is the opposite of it's name.

Being of a cynical bent, I surmise that the unuseability of Excel generates billions of dollars of IT income for Microsoft through sales of custom software.  It's pretty obvious that all the bugs are easily fixable, they could easily change the instructions they wrote to make it do those things, they just choose not to, and to withhold the information how to. change or prevent it.

This is the correct question:

Is there any other spreadsheet program which does not suffer from the unbelievable bugs that Excel does and has good functionality and customisability?

Whoever can answer this will probably get more "helpful" votes than has ever happened in history.

And to you kind charitable people who gave 23 pages of completely useless replies without even addressing the questions which have been asked:  From all of us readers, buzz off.

Probably I have not been clear. 

I am not taking anyone's side.  I don't have any skin in this game. 

My role on this peer-to-peer group, as a volunteer participant, is to try to help people use the tool that is available, as best as I know how.  So when people present a problem, even though it may be embedded in a list of complaints as to the inability of MS to produce the program with the features they want, I try to help with the problem.  I  cannot do anything about the complaints regarding MS.  But I suspect that people who stumble on this thread looking for help (which many do), get lost in the volume of complaints.  So I try to follow along to help those.

In my opinion, this is not a good venue to effect change in MS Excel features.  I think you need to be at a different level than a MS sponsored peer-to-peer group that is not visibly attended by those responsible for those changes.