Excel/KNIME decimal places

Hi everyone,

I’ve run into a strange little issue and I’d really appreciate some help. I tried searching the forum to see if a similar question was already posted, but I couldn’t find anything relevant.

I have an Excel file that contains a column with numbers that have decimal places. These numbers can have any number of decimals, it’s not consistent. They are stored in Excel using a custom format, so on the screen they appear like this:

But their actual values are:

The problem is that when I load these values into KNIME using the Excel Reader, KNIME reads the full underlying numeric values, meaning all decimal places that Excel actually stores.

What I need instead is to load the numbers exactly as they appear in Excel, according to their custom number format.

So, for example:

*

if the custom format in Excel displays 3 decimal places, I need KNIME to read exactly 3,

*

if it displays 5 decimal places, I need KNIME to read 5,

and so on.

If I import them with all of their original decimal places, I have no way of knowing how many decimals each value should be rounded to, since Excel formatting is not preserved by the Excel Reader. This is very important for me because I need to perform further transformations and calculations on these numbers later in the workflow.

I’m aware that Excel has the “Set precision as displayed” option, but I’m trying to avoid modifying the source file manually, ideally, I’m looking for a solution that’s fully automated within KNIME.

Does anyone know if there’s a way to:

*

retrieve the formatted (displayed) value instead of the raw numeric value,

*

or extract the number of decimals based on Excel formatting,

*

or any workaround that achieves the same effect?

Any advice, hints, or creative solutions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!