@Patrick There is also a data style element that is assigning a currency type.
I spend some time with TAGATTR options and was able to create a type=string but it would get the currency symbol, commas and decimal point stripped out.
I tried: 1) modify the created xml in Excel by deleting the cell
2) entering the dollar formatted value using the Excel apostrophe before entering the value to get a string value
3) save back to XML
At which point I found that there was
Type="String" X:ticked="1"
I was able to get the TAGGATR to have that value BUT the StyleID was still pointing to that currency still and stripping the currency symbols. So there might be something in the tagset that treats Currency appearing values before applying the TAGATTR properties.
</Style>
<Style ss:ID="data__l1" ss:Parent="data__l">
<Protection ss:Protected="1" />
<NumberFormat ss:Format="Currency" />
</Style>
/* and then the value*/
<Cell ss:StyleID="data__l1" ss:Index="2"><Data ss:Type="String" X:ticked="1">1234567890</Data></Cell>
At which point I gave up trying as I wasn't understanding what rules might be involved.