RichHartmann:

It is not clear whether the cusips already exist in an excel speadsheet or you want to move them from a database or file into an excel spreadsheet. In Excel 2003, using double-quotes("cusips") will leave the double-quotes around the number. However the single-quote just at the beginning of the cusip, converts the it to text and right-justify it and the single quote does not show. Could this be the case, if the cusips already exist in the XL-spreadsheet?