Question: I have a Microsoft Excel (.xlsx) file which I would like to load into R. I've done this before and used `read.csv()`, which always worked fine, but with this file something strange happens. Something seems to go wrong with one column, which contains a row name and large numbers with values of 13 digits. This column is - no matter how I try to load the file into R - converted to its scientific notation.

The problem can be simulated as follows: in Excel, type in the first column first 
row, a random row name. Type in the first column second row a random big number, e.g. 6345157890027. Then save the file as .csv. Let's suppose I want to open this file in R:
`TestData <- read.csv(file = "Test.csv", head = TRUE)` and then
`View(TestData)` 

The number 6345157890027 is now displayed as 6.345158e+12, and information is lost somewhere during import. Now, I've tried to solve this multiple ways:

* In both the .xlsx and the .csv file, I converted the row
into number format
* Tried all .csv formats that Excel allows me to save it in
* Copied the whole worksheet to a new Excel file
* Used the Import Data function in Excel
* Save the worksheet as .txt and import this into R using File->Import Dataset function

However, none of these solved the problem: the value always seems to appear in scientific notation. Does someone knows a way to make sure either Excel or R does not transform large numbers into scientific notation?

Answer: 
I solved this problem by using the `format` function, as proposed in another post by [rnso](https://stackoverflow.com/users/3522130/rnso) (see [How to prevent scientific notation in R?](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/25946047/how-to-prevent-scientific-notation-in-r/25946211)):

```
> xx = 100000000000
> xx
[1] 1e+11
> format(xx, scientific=F)
[1] "100000000000"

```

Also worked perfectly for my wrongly displayed column in my data frame
you could use the `as.bit64` function from the `bit64` package. Just make sure to not use 64bit numbers to reference other R objects. This solutions is good for numbers found in the `+-2^63` range.