Hi there!
I am exporting a list of sheet information to excel which include some data that seem similiar to a date.
For example, I have a paramter in Revit with information like this: “18-MAY”, “20-NOV”, … And other parameter has data like this: 1/1, 1/2, 2/2…
The problem is when I export this information to Excel and the data format is changed to date format.
How can I avoid this? I want to export all data as string without any format change.
You could try with BumbleBee package with Write Excel node.
I didn’t try, so no guarantee.
Or maybe you can convert your date into strings with String from Object node.
Try adding a ‘ character before each of the values. I believe this will force excel to read the data as a string (which is what your data is).
I have tried the second option you propose but didn´t work. I am trying the Bumblebee package but this node it taking years to export…
I think @jacob.small is correct. It isn’t the data format going out, it is a function within Excel that just “sees” the data as a date / time format and automatically formats it.
Another option would be to Pre-Format your Excel file and tell it the cells / rows / columns that you need are to be string and not date. I have done this in the past for various things as well.
Yes, adding a ’ might solve the problem but adding to another step in excel to correct de data.
Pre-format the Excel file don´t work for me because I need to overwrite it
‘1/1 should read as 1/1. The ‘ is a special character in excel which ‘forces’ a string format. Give it a shot and see if it helps.
Another possible solution would be to convert the values to a decimal (Sting.Split node, String.ToNumber node, and a x[0] / x[1] code block), store the number as a decimal, and then convert it to a fraction in excel via formatting. This may get messy if you have odd denominators though.
Finally I decided to use JacboSmall solution. I inserted a ’ before every element of the list and now the info is exported correctly in Excel
