#LibreOffice Calc says to preserve a leading 0 in a number, put a single apostrophe in front of it: https://help.libreoffice.org/6.2/en-US/text/scalc/guide/integer_leading_zero.html
If I type that in manually, it indeed works.
If I do find and replace to put a '0 at the start of every number in the column, the ' is displayed in the cell. Same if I paste in the cell contents.
I assume I am doing something wrong, but not sure what. Clearing direct formatting and then reformatting either as text or a number doesn't seem to change anything -- the '0 is still displayed both ways.
@johns You could export the spreadsheet as a CSV file, then write a Python script or awk command to edit it. It might help if you move the column you want to edit to the first position before you export.
@vegantacos Yeah.. That might have to be it for the moment -- though maybe just with some emacs commands instead of awk ;)
@johns Use xdotool to script typing it 263 times?
the race is on to see if I can figure out how to make copy/paste work right in less time than I can just type '0 263 times.