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st: Excel and numbers treated as strings


From   Douglas Levy <[email protected]>
To   [email protected]
Subject   st: Excel and numbers treated as strings
Date   Wed, 9 May 2012 15:24:38 -0400

Is there a way to export a file from Stata such that Excel or Access
would treat a numeric variable as a string? I am processing data in
Stata to be used in a mail merge in Excel or Access. The file I want
to export has ZIP (postal) codes in it that I need treated as a string
variable to preserve any leading zeroes.

If Excel (or Access) does a "dumb" import of a .csv or .txt file (that
is, Excel is given no information on the formats of the variables
being imported and has to guess), it will ignore leading zeroes and
treat all number variables as numeric. I want to automate my processes
as much as possible. My thinking is it will be simpler to automate a
smart export from Stata than to automate a smart import from Excel.

Is there a trick to exporting data from Stata that will allow Excel
(or Access) to automatically recognize leading zeroes without being
told to do so? Perhaps by putting quotation marks surrounding the
numeric strings before export?

Does it require Stata 12 (which can output Excel files)? Would it even
work in Stata 12 (can Stata specify that a variable in an outputted
Excel file is a string)?

Thanks for any advice.
Best,
Doug
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