https://communities.sas.com/t5/SAS-Procedures/import-from-Excel/m-p/32068#M7681 Why does SAS pull in a numeric or general formatted column as character when it is formatted as something else in Excel? I am just using the general proc import:<BR /> PROC IMPORT OUT= WORK.EMPLIST<BR /> DATAFILE= "S:\emplist.xls" <BR /> DBMS=EXCEL REPLACE;<BR /> RANGE="EMP$"; <BR /> GETNAMES=YES;<BR /> MIXED=NO;<BR /> SCANTEXT=YES;<BR /> USEDATE=YES;<BR /> SCANTIME=YES;<BR /> RUN; Thu, 17 Dec 2009 16:56:20 GMT Marilyn 2009-12-17T16:56:20Z https://communities.sas.com/t5/SAS-Procedures/import-from-Excel/m-p/32068#M7681 Why does SAS pull in a numeric or general formatted column as character when it is formatted as something else in Excel? I am just using the general proc import:<BR /> PROC IMPORT OUT= WORK.EMPLIST<BR /> DATAFILE= "S:\emplist.xls" <BR /> DBMS=EXCEL REPLACE;<BR /> RANGE="EMP$"; <BR /> GETNAMES=YES;<BR /> MIXED=NO;<BR /> SCANTEXT=YES;<BR /> USEDATE=YES;<BR /> SCANTIME=YES;<BR /> RUN; Thu, 17 Dec 2009 16:56:20 GMT https://communities.sas.com/t5/SAS-Procedures/import-from-Excel/m-p/32068#M7681 Marilyn 2009-12-17T16:56:20Z https://communities.sas.com/t5/SAS-Procedures/import-from-Excel/m-p/32069#M7682 You probably need to take this to Tech Support for a definitive answer. I will hazard a couple of observations.<BR /> <BR /> First, the behavior you see will vary significantly by version of SAS. SAS 9.2 is much more robust about importing Excel than is 9.1.3 than is 8.2. SAS has made many improvements with 9.2.<BR /> <BR /> I think that, for general formatting, SAS looks at all or some of the observations to determine type. If there is any character in the column, then SAS brings it in as text (BTW, a leading space before a number is text)<BR /> <BR /> Doc Thu, 17 Dec 2009 20:07:11 GMT https://communities.sas.com/t5/SAS-Procedures/import-from-Excel/m-p/32069#M7682 Doc_Duke 2009-12-17T20:07:11Z