Thank you for your interest in downloading the Comparable Sales (or Deed Data) as a CSV file in Excel from our website. If you do a straight download, Excel will automatically delete the leading zeros in the CSV file, and try to read the parcel numbers as equations. This is built into Excel programming, and we cannot adjust it from this end. To prevent errors in the downloaded data, you have to open the file in a special way and tell it to make the field "text" instead of numbers.

Instead of opening the file, SAVE the file to your computer. Make sure it ends with ".CSV", and select "All files" instead of "Excel" under "Save As Type." THEN:

1. Open a blank Excel workbook using the Excel icon (DO NOT click on the file to open it).

2. Click these menu items: Data -> Import External Data -> Import Data

3. Use the file list pop-up to find and highlight the file to open.

4. Youll get a Text Import Wizard. Every time you press next in a wizard, youll get a new screen.

5. Click Delimited. Press <next>

6. Click Comma. Press <next>

7. Click on the column to convert to text (For example, highlight RG)

8. Click on Text in the Column data format box

9. Repeat 7-8 for every column to customize

10. Click <next>

11. Click <OK>

If you save the spreadsheet, it should maintain the formatting so the next time you can open it by clicking on the file.

Our IT team is looking for a simpler way to make this work, but in the meantime this should do the trick. Please give us a call at 464-4295 if you have any questions or need assistance!

Thank you.