Excel and SAS cannot accurately store a number beyond 15 digits, so if you want your data in Excel as a number, it will be somewhat incorrect, and exponential is the most appropriate way to show it. To demonstrate, if in Excel you type 123456789123456789, Excel will display it as 1.23457E+17. If you then explicitly display it with a "Number" format, it will come out as 123456789123456000, so you can see you've lost the digits after the 15th. On the other hand, if you want it in Excel as character, which is the only way to present a representation of an 18 digit number, I think that your code is functioning correctly. Note that as soon as you try to execute numeric operations on it in Excel, however, it will revert to 15 digits of accuracy. Tom ... View more