How do I get excel to not mess around with the formatting of a .csv file

I have two issues with a csv file that occur when I try and edit it in Excel.

1. I have an ISBN column that gets reformatted to scientific format every time I save the file


2. The encoding for the file is changed from UTF-8 to ANSI when I open the file.

It is really, really frustrating and a complete waste of time.

Is there any way that I can force Excel to leave the format of the file alone?

Answer

Don't double click on the CSV file because that will auto format the columns. Instead create a new spreadsheet and use the Data Import and you can manually format the columns to TEXT to avoid cutting off numbers and silly auto formatting.