Hi all,

I'm new here, so sorry if I've posted in the wrong place, and I know nothing about computers so sorry in advance if this is a stupid question. I'm trying to export data from excel in a specific format. I've attached an example of what the excel file looks like. The format I want it to be in is in the first text file (samp_inp_2b.txt). When I export from excel as unicode or tab delimited it results in the second text file (sample2db.txt). As far as I can tell the two text files are the same but the line breaks are different, in the first one the linebreaks are there but don't display for some reason (at least in notepad). Does anyone know how to export data from excel to get the first text file format? If anyone knows how to directly convert between the 2nd and 1st text files that would also do the job.


Thanks in advance!

Attached Files

	sample2e.xlsx (31.0 KB, 15 views)
	samp_inp_2b.txt (10.0 KB, 15 views)
	sample2db.txt (10.8 KB, 12 views)

Could you open the exported version in MS Word and use the Replace function to search for the tab marker and replace it with nothing which will remove it from the file and then once they are all gone save as TXT again?

Excel does not have an export format that would remove the line breaks from the data. You could, however, produce such an output using a Directory mailmerge in Word. To do this:
1. Start Word and go to Mailings
2. Choose Start Mailmerge>Directory
3. Choose Select Recipients>Use existing List, then navigate to and select your workbook.
4. Choose Insert Mergefield and click on each of the items, in turn
5. Press Alt-F9 to reveal the mergefield coding, it should look like:
{ MERGEFIELD "_WGOP_samp_inpu_2" }{ MERGEFIELD "F2" }{ MERGEFIELD "F3" }{ MERGEFIELD "F4" }{ MERGEFIELD "F5" }{ MERGEFIELD "F6" }
6. Edit each of these fields by inserting \f "→", where the → is a TAB character, so they all end up as:
{ MERGEFIELD "_WGOP_samp_inpu_2" \f "→"}{ MERGEFIELD "F2" \f "→"}{ MERGEFIELD "F3" \f "→"}{ MERGEFIELD "F4" \f "→"}{ MERGEFIELD "F5" \f "→"}{ MERGEFIELD "F6" \f "→"}
7. Choose Finish & Merge>Edit Individual Documents>OK
8. The output can now be saved as a text file from Word.

__________________
Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]