title: Formatting issues for dataframe when taking values from Python to Excel
body: <p>I'm using Spyder to merge and concat dataframes and save them as CSV and Excel files.</p>
  
  <p>The problem is that Excel saves certain characters as both dates and strange numerical values. The columns that are the issue are <code>ID</code> which are <code>non-null objects</code>.</p>
  
  <p>For example I have a dataframe that has some values like this:</p>
  
  <pre><code>Name     ID       State
  Hikki    1-01     AK
  Donald   4 A      AZ
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I'm able to view the proper values in Spyder but when I save to Excel and open it in Excel this is what some of these values look like:</p>
  
  <pre><code>Name     ID             State
  Hikki    01-Jan         AK
  Donald   0.166666667    AZ
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>This only seems to happen with very specific types - like characters with dashes or numbers with with letters.</p>
  
  <p>Is there any way I can save to a direct format so that I don't have to change things manually in Excel?</p>
  
  <p>Currently the only fix I have is turning some of them to <code>Text</code> format in Excel - but this only seems to work for the number to date problem and not the 4 A to random number issue.</p>