Why does formating get messed up during import from text to csv?

Hi Everyone,

I'm tryng to convert a text file that is comma separated into a csv. I've done this hundreds of times in the past but one thing really puzzles me and I'd appreciate any guidance on how I can fix this.

In the text file I have some bank details whic show sort code and bank account number. These are separted in teh text file correctly with commas as in teh example below.

,11-11-11,01234567,

When I open the text file using excel and import it. I select the format of Text for all columns and excel displays the data. Now to my problem, in the column where the sort code is contained "AH" (in the example above that is 11-11-11) Some of the cells show these as a date format such as 11/06/1941 while other cells show this information correctly formated as 11-11-11. I can see no logical reason why for example these cells format incorrectly

AH2
AH3
AH10
AH28
AH30

Those are just a few examples to show the apparent randomness of the issue. The text file itself looks 100% error free.


It's as if Excel ignores the format command on some cells during the import. Can anyone help me with this problem?

I'm using Excel 2007

Thanks

Steve