Thanks Art. I didn't try PROC Export (just ODS and the right-click "View in Excel") but don't know why I didn't (just lazy??), I just didn't. I'll have to force the PROC Export. Interesting, when the "View in Excel" option is used, X does become numeric.

Thanks for the nudge.

Paula

In article <200701162316.l0GMlJNs031848@mailgw.cc.uga.edu>, art297 @NETSCAPE.NET says... > Paula, > > I wasn't able to replicate the problem. I ran the following code on SAS9 > (Windows 2003 server): > > data have; > input x $ y $; > cards; > 111 222 > 4E1 ABC > 3E4 DEF > 111 222 > ; > run; > PROC EXPORT DATA= WORK.have > OUTFILE= "S:\have.xls" > DBMS=EXCEL2000 REPLACE; > SHEET="data"; > RUN; > > The resulting spreadsheet contained all text items with notes asking if I > wanted to convert the text to numbers. > > Art > ---------- > > On Tue, 16 Jan 2007 22:40:51 GMT, Paula Sims <paulasims2004@HOTMAIL.COM> > wrote: > > >Hello there, > >OK, I know Excel has a "mind" of its own and does what it thinks is > >right, regardless of the truth, but I could use help in figuring out how > >to stop what's happening to me. > > > >I'm outputting from a SAS dataset to Excel and one of the columns has > >values such as 4E1. Unfortunately, Excel interprets this as 4.00E+1. > >I've tried ODS, and the right-click export method and it still doesn't > >work. Is there any way to prevent this? > > > >Thanks so much. > > > >Paula >