Yeah, there are no spreadsheet programs I've used (save maybe Google Sheets) that don't do horrendously obnoxious things to auto update one's data like this.
This exact issue is the reason there is both a cards.csv and a cards.ods in the zip. I use LibreOffice Calc, and my workflow looks like this:
- Modify cards.ods so that all of the stat columns are Text (the entire column)
- Adjust column widths, etc
- Add new cards as needed
- Save cards.ods (all the formatting is now saved, and will not need to be done again so long as I open the ods again in the future)
- Save A Copy As into cards.csv with the following options:
And there you go. You could theoretically do the same thing with a new cards.xls if you're working with Excel: keep a master copy that is in the native format of whatever software you're using, and just export to CSV when you're done.
It's a pity all offline spreadsheet programs are a giant pile of #$&*@!, but it is what it is. This workaround workflow at least keeps Excel/Calc from
touching my goddamn data every time I interact with it.
I sort-of mentioned this issue in the documentation, but I'll make sure something like the above is put into the next version more explicitly.