[Koha] Koha CSV Reports

[Fred King]

I would agree with you, except that in my case changing from the default
to text kept the [rude adjective] barcode numbers in scientific notation.
The barcodes I was trying to import into Koha didn't have any leading
zeros, letters, or punctuation (I missed seeing those in the
example)--they were just 14-digit numbers, each of which began with the
same five numbers. And exporting from Horizon as a CSV file, massaging the
data in a spreadsheet, then re-exporting using the Koha CSV import
template was the easiest way to convert our database.

For me, it worked. But YMMV.

Fred King
kohauser at phred.us


> Op 16/07/13 14:48, Fred King schreef:
>>    Right click on the top of the column
>>    Select "format cells"
>>    Choose "number"
>>    Change "decimal places" to 0.
>
> Use text, don't use number. This is exactly what I'm talking about :)
> Barcodes aren't numbers, they're strings of characters with no
> particular semantics.
>
> In particular, leading zeros and punctuation like '-' risk getting lost.
> Barcodes can even have letters in them, like the example provided does.
> I've also seen ISBNs turned into scientific notation because they were
> too big to be regular numbers. That caused headaches.
>
> My fundamental belief is that spreadsheets tend to cause data loss
> unless you tread very carefully. This kind of thing is not what they're
> designed for, nor are they good at it (though they _seem_ that way.)
>
> When working on migrations, the only reason a spreadsheet will touch my
> data is for browsing it, they are OK for getting rough summaries of
> what's in there, but they always corrupt something. So I never let them
> save anything.
>
> It even can cause major economic downturns!
> http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2013/04/17/rogoff-reinhart-excel-errors/
>
> --
> Robin Sheat
> Catalyst IT Ltd.
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