Selecting specific text out of a series of columns

[speedycorn1]

I have a set of data that looks something like this, but is much, much longer:
-0.799, -3.840e-7
-0.798, -3.793e-7
-0.797, -3.759e-7
-0.796, -3.723e-7
-0.795, -3.670e-7
-0.794, -3.655e-7
-0.793, -3.642e-7
-0.792, -3.616e-7
-0.791, -3.595e-7
-0.790, -3.578e-7
-0.789, -3.551e-7
-0.788, -3.535e-7
I need to select only the left column, but can't without also selecting the right column. I could go through the data and individually delete each entry in the right column until I was left with only the left column, but the columns go on for about 25 pages, so that would be very tedious. Is there anyway to only select only the left column? Can this be done in Excel?

[Kimberly]

hold down an ALT key as you drag to select

Hope it works. It would help to know how the 2 cols came to be... table? Newspaper cols? tab characters?

[speedycorn1]

The data's from analytical chemistry software, but I think holding down the alt key let me select what I needed, so thanks!

[BrazzellMarketing]

That would work. Here's another option that may give you other manipulation options in the future, and may create less work for you.

Copy and past all the values into notepad. Save as a separate file with a .csv extension (not .txt). This tells the computer it's a comma separated values sheet. That's a simple form of spreadsheet. Open your CSV in Excel. In Excel, it will open your data in two columns, and the commas will have disappeared. Now you can delete an entire column in one stroke, sort by values, do operations, etc. When you save, save as file type CSV. You will then be able to copy the CSV text and paste it back into your word document.