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How to stop numbers showing as scientific notation (1.23E+11)

✓ Verified in LibreOffice 25.8.7.3 ✓ Verified in Google Sheets (2026-08-30)

Show long numbers in full — and know when the real problem is the 15-digit limit.

The formula

AppFormulaNotes
Excel (desktop)=TEXT(A2,"0")Or format the cell as Number with 0 decimals. For IDs, the real fix is importing the column AS TEXT.
Google Sheets=TEXT(A2,"0")Identical; Format → Number also works.
LibreOffice Calc=TEXT(A2,"0")Identical.

How it works

Scientific notation is just the default DISPLAY for wide numbers — a "0" format (via TEXT or the cell format) shows all the digits: 1.23E+11 becomes 123000000000. The deeper trap: spreadsheets keep only 15 significant digits, so a 16-digit credit-card or barcode number is already silently corrupted (final digit becomes 0) the moment it's entered as a number — no format can bring it back. Long identifiers must be TEXT from the start: import the column as text or prefix entries with an apostrophe.

Verified, not just documented

We ran =TEXT(A2,"0") in LibreOffice 25.8.7.3 (headless, with forced recalculation) and it returned 123000000000 — exactly the expected result. We then ran the same formulas in Google Sheets, executed 2026-08-30: a formula-only workbook goes into Google Drive, which converts it to a Sheet and recalculates every formula with Google’s own engine, and comes back out as .xlsx carrying the values Google computed. It returned 123000000000 for the worked example, the same value LibreOffice produced. Both engines’ numbers on this page are executed results. The Excel formula follows Microsoft’s official documented syntax — we do not run desktop Excel.

Functions used

TEXT — see full Excel, Google Sheets & LibreOffice compatibility for each.

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