I use Excel to display/sort tables of data arranged in columns.

Some of ther columns are numeric, some are text.

One of the columns is giving me a lot of hassle. It should contain names of
genes, which Excel does okay, until you find names like "SEP7" or "MAR3",
which Excel transforms into a date form, usually "Sep-07", but sometimes into
a 5-digit number like "39326".

I have cancelled every auto-correct and auto-format option I can think of,
but no joy.

The only thing that works is format the whole thing as text.

Isn't there a way to avoid this "by default", so that Excel just shuts up
and takes what I type in as I type it, without changing anything? If it's a
number, it's a number, if not, it's text...

It's very annoying, because I have these tables with tens of thousands of
names, which I rearrange, merge, mix... when you import a column of names the
names are changed without warning. I don't want Excel to guess anything for
me.

If you know how to turn off this "feature" that appears loaded by default,
please let me know.

Thanks!

Jose