[PW] collective wisdom question

[Barbara Bussart]

The question that I have is not a research question, but a collective wisdom
question.

I have been using Microsoft Word/Excel  mail merge to create spine labels.
Just this week, something started happening that has never happened before
(at least to me!)

I create a document in Excel with collection, call #, cutter # and volume #
columns.  We never go over 5 decimal points in the Dewey system for our
collection.

When I went to merge this information into label format, I got some pretty
strange call #s.  Extra digits were added (usually about 11).  Sometimes it
was 9 or 10 zeros with a larger number at the end, and sometimes the real
number (something like 322.27) would become 322.269999999996.  And there are
always a few that don't change at all.

I can't make the format "number" with a specific number of decimals, because
call numbers don't always have the same number.
I tried making the column both "General" and "text" format, with no change.
I have retyped the entire Excel document, with no change.

Has anyone else had this problem (or a similar one, if you have experienced
it with things other than call numbers)?  Or have you a suggestion as to
what I can check in the settings that might be affecting this?  No one I've
talked to has had anything like this occur for them.  It has happened on 3
separate computers, so it MUST be something that I'm doing, but I can't
figure out what.

Thanks in advance.

Please send direct to me, so we don't tie up the list.

Barbara J. Bussart
Woonsocket Harris Public Library
Woonsocket, RI
barbarbt at gmail.com