How to paste data into excel?
I need to paste a lot of data (about 18000 different rows) into excel. When I do this though, it puts everything from one row into a cell. It will take me hours to move all this about, is there anyway I can copy the data across so it goes into a table with rows and columns, rather than each row in one cell and no columns?
Comments
You have to do a bit of work first.
Each field or row must be delimited. Say you have three fields (rows):
name
address
country
You delimit them by using a " or a ; like this
name;
address;
country;
it can also appear like this:
Tom;home;Australia;jenny;not home;England;sue;nearby;America
There are various ways you can add delimiters to large text files, but you'll have to experiment or do everything by hand. Some good text editors will allow you to search and replace a line feed (carriage return) with a delimiter. Unfortunately I can't recommend one from the top of my head.
If you have three fields in Excel, when you import from your standard delimited text file, it will ask for the delimiter type (;) and enter the first three items in name, address, country, then the next three into name, address, country until it reaches the end.
I hope that makes sense. Just remember that there must be a pattern. Three items for each line or row of cells, or whatever.
Good luck.
You can import data from a word pad text file with tabs being used to separate the information on each row.
Open up a new excel file, go to data > import external data > import data
Find your file (remember to change files type box to show "All files"
Select file > open > an import wizard box will appear to help you.
Leave default settings for delimited and go click on finish and ok.
This will then import the lot onto separate columns and rows.
Copy the whole worksheet not just the lines of text/data.