[mso] Re: .csv
- From: "Linda F. Johnson" <linda@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <mso@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 15 Sep 2003 23:16:12 -0400
And hey...in defense of Word over Excel....one thing I have always done with
these unwieldy text files that people try to import into Excel from their
proprietary database programs (you know them old dos based programs I'm
talking about? Well, if you deal with Excel much, you might know what I'm
talking about) Anyway...people are always posting to Excel forums saying
when they bring this data in, it's all over the place in Excel (becuz of the
comma problem Greg mentioned and a few other things)...anyway I ALWAYS tell
them to copy it from Excel into Word and use Word's Convert Table to Text
feature on it, then turn on Word's hidden characters and use Find/Replace to
clean it up, then Convert Text back to Table and Copy it from Word back to
Excel....most of them laugh at me when I tell them Word does this better
than Excel...but Excel's Find/Replace really can't hold a candle to Word's
(can't find tabs and other characters cuz it ain't meant to deal with
text..it's a numbers cruncher)....well, this one guy was having this exact
problem a couple weeks ago and all the Excel gurus were telling him to do
this and that and he was ending up with a total mess...so, I finally risked
getting laughed at again and posted the above suggestion and here's what I
got back from him personally the other day:
"Linda, My name is Mike and you gave me some advice on converting an Excel
database to a Word file...this was using an exceptionally large database and
I wanted you to know the results of your suggestions. The suggestion worked
beautifully! Not only did the data convert to Word, but it allowed me to
use the Columns option and transposed a 3000 sheet project into 500 pages.
I owe you a world of gratitude. Keep up the good work. Thank you, Thank
you, THANK YOU"
So..you see? I don't think Excel is really BETTER than the others...I just
think it's more stable...but Word can be a powerhouse for formatting
nightmares like this one :-)
Now I'm REALLY going to bed
Linda F. Johnson, M.A., MOS
Linda's Computer Stop
http://personal-computer-tutor.com
Free e-Books, Newsletter, and tutorials
-----Original Message-----
From: mso-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:mso-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf
Of Greg Chapman
Sent: Monday, September 15, 2003 10:56 PM
To: mso@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [mso] Re: .csv
One more note on CSV files:
Microsoft never seems to have learned this rule in producing CSV files but
they seem to know it when translating one. Not only should each 'field' be
separated by a comma, but each string of data should also be surrounded by
double quotes. Oh Gawd, there they are again, the dreaded double quotes!!
"Why?", you might ask. That is so that you can actually include a comma
inside a single field of data without the automatic assumption that the
comma is serving as a separator.
May not mean much to you now but it may in the future.
Greg Chapman
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