Exporting from Excel to a Fixed Length Flat File

"bearie" <bearie@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:5C4A03B5-A8C7-4DE9-9DB5-C534833ACA02@microsoft.com...
> Is there a way to Export from Excel to a Fixed Length Flat File?

File > Save As... > Save as type: Formatted Text (Space delimited)
(*.prn)

Caution:
- insufficient column width leads to truncated cell content
- only the active worksheet is saved.
Make all columns wide enough and you are safe!

Markus,

Thank you so much!!

We have spent many months looking for this feature. Could not find it in
Help.

barb

"Markus L" wrote:

> "bearie" <bearie@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:5C4A03B5-A8C7-4DE9-9DB5-C534833ACA02@microsoft.com...
> > Is there a way to Export from Excel to a Fixed Length Flat File?
>
> File > Save As... > Save as type: Formatted Text (Space delimited)
> (*.prn)
>
> Caution:
> - insufficient column width leads to truncated cell content
> - only the active worksheet is saved.
> Make all columns wide enough and you are safe!
>
>
>

We worked with this a bit, and found it works great to a point.

We have files that are 1,200 characters that need to be saved as fixed
length flat files.

Out only idea here is to find a print driver that will accept really large
paper (we tried 17X11 and was still not large enough) to make this work.

Any other ideas?

"Markus L" wrote:

> "bearie" <bearie@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:5C4A03B5-A8C7-4DE9-9DB5-C534833ACA02@microsoft.com...
> > Is there a way to Export from Excel to a Fixed Length Flat File?
>
> File > Save As... > Save as type: Formatted Text (Space delimited)
> (*.prn)
>
> Caution:
> - insufficient column width leads to truncated cell content
> - only the active worksheet is saved.
> Make all columns wide enough and you are safe!
>
>
>

Saved from a previous post:

There's a limit of 240 characters per line when you save as .prn files.

You have a few choices (try against a copy of your worksheet):

I'd either concatenate the cell values into another column:

=LEFT(A1&REPT(" ",5),5) & LEFT(B1&REPT(" ",4),4) & TEXT(C1,"000,000.00")

(You'll have to modify it to match what you want.)

Then I'd copy and paste to notepad and save from there. Once I figured out that
ugly formula, I kept it and just unhide that column when I wanted to export the
data.

If that doesn't work for you, maybe you could do it with a macro.

Here's a link that provides a macro:
http://google.com/groups?threadm=015...280a%40phx.gbl

=========

If you're new to macros, you may want to read David McRitchie's intro at:
http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/getstarted.htm

bearie wrote:
>
> We worked with this a bit, and found it works great to a point.
>
> We have files that are 1,200 characters that need to be saved as fixed
> length flat files.
>
> Out only idea here is to find a print driver that will accept really large
> paper (we tried 17X11 and was still not large enough) to make this work.
>
> Any other ideas?
>
> "Markus L" wrote:
>
> > "bearie" <bearie@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> > news:5C4A03B5-A8C7-4DE9-9DB5-C534833ACA02@microsoft.com...
> > > Is there a way to Export from Excel to a Fixed Length Flat File?
> >
> > File > Save As... > Save as type: Formatted Text (Space delimited)
> > (*.prn)
> >
> > Caution:
> > - insufficient column width leads to truncated cell content
> > - only the active worksheet is saved.
> > Make all columns wide enough and you are safe!
> >
> >
> >

--

Dave Peterson

Is there a way to Export from Excel to a Fixed Length Flat File?

We are currently creating file in Excel and copying data in Access database.
Then exporting from Access to a Fixed Length Flat File.

This is very cumbersome and opens up for error.

Thank you for your help,
Barbara J. Miller

"bearie" <bearie@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:5C4A03B5-A8C7-4DE9-9DB5-C534833ACA02@microsoft.com...
> Is there a way to Export from Excel to a Fixed Length Flat File?

File > Save As... > Save as type: Formatted Text (Space delimited)
(*.prn)

Caution:
- insufficient column width leads to truncated cell content
- only the active worksheet is saved.
Make all columns wide enough and you are safe!

Markus,

Thank you so much!!

We have spent many months looking for this feature. Could not find it in
Help.

barb

"Markus L" wrote:

> "bearie" <bearie@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:5C4A03B5-A8C7-4DE9-9DB5-C534833ACA02@microsoft.com...
> > Is there a way to Export from Excel to a Fixed Length Flat File?
>
> File > Save As... > Save as type: Formatted Text (Space delimited)
> (*.prn)
>
> Caution:
> - insufficient column width leads to truncated cell content
> - only the active worksheet is saved.
> Make all columns wide enough and you are safe!
>
>
>

We worked with this a bit, and found it works great to a point.

We have files that are 1,200 characters that need to be saved as fixed
length flat files.

Out only idea here is to find a print driver that will accept really large
paper (we tried 17X11 and was still not large enough) to make this work.

Any other ideas?

"Markus L" wrote:

> "bearie" <bearie@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:5C4A03B5-A8C7-4DE9-9DB5-C534833ACA02@microsoft.com...
> > Is there a way to Export from Excel to a Fixed Length Flat File?
>
> File > Save As... > Save as type: Formatted Text (Space delimited)
> (*.prn)
>
> Caution:
> - insufficient column width leads to truncated cell content
> - only the active worksheet is saved.
> Make all columns wide enough and you are safe!
>
>
>

Saved from a previous post:

There's a limit of 240 characters per line when you save as .prn files.

You have a few choices (try against a copy of your worksheet):

I'd either concatenate the cell values into another column:

=LEFT(A1&REPT(" ",5),5) & LEFT(B1&REPT(" ",4),4) & TEXT(C1,"000,000.00")

(You'll have to modify it to match what you want.)

Then I'd copy and paste to notepad and save from there. Once I figured out that
ugly formula, I kept it and just unhide that column when I wanted to export the
data.

If that doesn't work for you, maybe you could do it with a macro.

Here's a link that provides a macro:
http://google.com/groups?threadm=015...280a%40phx.gbl

=========

If you're new to macros, you may want to read David McRitchie's intro at:
http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/getstarted.htm

bearie wrote:
>
> We worked with this a bit, and found it works great to a point.
>
> We have files that are 1,200 characters that need to be saved as fixed
> length flat files.
>
> Out only idea here is to find a print driver that will accept really large
> paper (we tried 17X11 and was still not large enough) to make this work.
>
> Any other ideas?
>
> "Markus L" wrote:
>
> > "bearie" <bearie@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> > news:5C4A03B5-A8C7-4DE9-9DB5-C534833ACA02@microsoft.com...
> > > Is there a way to Export from Excel to a Fixed Length Flat File?
> >
> > File > Save As... > Save as type: Formatted Text (Space delimited)
> > (*.prn)
> >
> > Caution:
> > - insufficient column width leads to truncated cell content
> > - only the active worksheet is saved.
> > Make all columns wide enough and you are safe!
> >
> >
> >

--

Dave Peterson