How to override auto correcting in the preview panel

Occurrence: When previewing a data file in the import module in Zed Axis, data can be auto corrected to a certain format, that could be date values, true and false values, number sequences, currency etc...  This is a feature that is built into the preview panel Excel component that Zed Axis uses and is an important feature in data validation and formatting routines.

Resolution: Under certain circumstances the auto correction may format the data into a format that is not required, ie dates to numbers, text to empty cells, unfortunately there is not an option available to disable all auto correction.  There are two possible ways to avoid this issue,

 

  •  firstly you can open the import file in Excel and select the column and change the data format to the desired format ie Text, Date etc.. 
  • or; place an apostrophe in front of the data in each cell this notation tells the auto correct feature that the cell contains text values only which should not be reformatted.
  • or finally you can save the file in Text Tab delimited format and import that.