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 fil

Answer 1

WARNING: Excel '07 (at least) has a(nother) bug: if there's a comma in the contents of a field, it doesn't parse the ="field, contents" correctly, but rather puts everything after the comma into the following field, regardless of the quotation marks.

The only workaround I've found that works is to eliminate the = when the field contents include a comma.

This may mean that there are some fields that are impossible to represent exactly "right" in Excel, but by now I trust no-one is too surprised.