copying information from notepad to excel

[Tyler Richardson]

hi, sort of a newbie question... but i have a large amount of tensile test data posted in notepad in the following fashion:

1 0.000000 -0.027250
2 0.017000 -0.025640
3 0.050200 -0.006720
4 0.083700 0.048180
5 0.116900 0.150060
6 0.150400 0.278790
7 0.183700 0.420000
8 0.216900 0.567240
9 0.250400 0.736640
10 0.283600 0.907380
11 0.316900 1.085900
12 0.350400 1.259060
13 0.383600 1.423480

and so on... whne i try to copy these into excel it stores it all in one column, even if i select 3 and paste it... is there a way to get them in 3 separate columns? (i cant select 1 column at a time in notepad - as far as i know)

[Roger Faucher]

I'm running Excel 2007. Here's an excerpt from the Help:
There are two ways to import data from a text file by using Microsoft Office Excel: You can open the text file in Excel, or you can import the text file as an external data range (external data range: A range of data that is brought into a worksheet but that originates outside of Excel, such as in a database or text file. In Excel, you can format the data or use it in calculations as you would any other data.). To export data from Excel to a text file, use the Save As command.

There are two commonly used text file formats:

Delimited text files (.txt), in which the TAB character (ASCII character code 009) usually separates each field of text.
Comma separated values text files (.csv), in which the comma character (,) usually separates each field of text.

You can change the separator character that is used in both delimited and .csv text files. This may be necessary to make sure that the import or export operation works the way that you want it to.

This should be nearly the same in all versions of Excel. Tell it to import text, point it to the file containing your text, change the delimiter from the default to a space (unless the data IS tab-delimited, it's impossible to tell from here). You may have to try several times but you'll learn from each attempt (backup your data before you begin so you can be fearless).

Good importing.

Make a great day!

Roger

[Hein van den Heuvel]

Roger is correct, but doesn't address the immediate question.

>> is there a way to get them in 3 separate columns?

Yes,
Select your column or range of fields.
Mouse over to the 'data' menu and drop down to teh 'text to columes'. Depending on whether there is a space before the '1' vs '13' you pick 'fix width' or 'seperated by'... select tab and space and finish.


>> i cant select 1 column at a time in notepad - as far as i know)

Not in the two decades old and never improved old workhorse of notepad no.
But you could in half a dozen or see freeware/shareware alternatives.
Check out:
textpad, crimson editor,...

hth,
Hein van den Heuvel