Importing external data with different field format I have the source file in Excel as follows: 


  Item-------Reference---Description
  -400020--20045-------Ruler 60cms
  8900032--20012-------Eraser 45gr


Notes:
Because I can add many spaces here, the dash"-" denotes a space on the original file
The Item 400020 comes with a space before the 4 from the source. 

The following file is the expected with the proper format to be exported to our DB


  Item--------Reference---Description
  0400020--0020045-----Ruler
  60cms    8900032--0020012-----Eraser 45gr
It seems that you need to convert numbers in excel table to characters first, and adjust the data (spaces). Export to CSV, and then import into database. I suppose you have varchar datatype for Item and Reference columns in the table.