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Question

Zip code formatting was lost in Zapier when transferred to Google Sheets, which led to removing the 0s.

  • 17 January 2024
  • 3 replies
  • 66 views
T

I have a zap that pushes a typeform to google sheets. I have a ‘zipcode’ column that is set to ‘Plain Text’ formatting. Certain zip codes contain a leading 0 i.e. 07242 . When a new row is added, the formatting is not retained from the previous row. It is reset to ‘Number’ and the preceding 0 is removed. I’ve tried custom formats, but the format always changes to ‘Number’. Anyone found a solution to this? Seems like a fairly common issue.

This post has been closed for comments. Please create a new post if you need help or have a question about this topic.

3 replies

Troy Tessalone
Userlevel 7
Badge +14

Hi @textvolt 

You can try changing the format of the data in the column to be text instead of being automatically detected and treated as a number.

Help: https://support.google.com/docs/answer/56470?hl=en&co=GENIE.Platform%3DDesktop

 

Alternative is to use Airtable, which has Field types. (string, data, number, etc.)

⚡ Troy Tessalone - AutomationAce.com | Premier Certified Zapier Expert | #1 Zapier Community Contributor
T

Hi Troy,

Thanks for the quick reply! As noted above, I have a ‘zipcode’ column that is set to ‘Plain Text’ formatting. 

My understanding is that the formatting of the last row will be ‘copied’ to the next row. However, it seems that the leading zero 0 is forcing the data to be interpreted as a number. Are you able to produce the same result?

Alternative is to use Airtable, which has Field types. (string, data, number, etc.)

This is not a viable option, as we have hours of work already built into Google Sheets.

SamB
Rank
Userlevel 7
Badge +11

Hi there @textvolt! 👋

Hope you don’t mind me jumping in here! I just did some testing and was able to recreate the behaviour you mentioned. For cells in a column where the formatting of Plain text had been applied to the previous cell in the same column, the leading zero was indeed removed from the zipcode. 

But, when the entire column was selected and had that formatting applied to the entire column it then retained the leading zero at the start of the zipcode. I suspect that it’s style-related formatting like bold, italic etc. that would copied to the next row, not value-related formatting.

Can you try selecting the entire Zipcode column in Google Sheets to apply the plain text formatting to all the cells in that column, and confirm whether that fixes it? 

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