Newbie - needing advice on formatting webform data

I am a web designer with very little experience in the intricacies of Excel, my problem is that I have a client who wants to import the general data emailed to him from his formmail survey on his web page, into a pre formatted Excel template - so it is easier to digest and send away.

The data looks something like this;

formtype: Registration page

redirect: http://www.anything.com.au/thanks.html

first-name: Joe

homephone: 632-4351603

4_months_commitment: Yes

submit: Submit registration

nationality: Filipino

languages-spoken: English

gender: Male

age: 38

marital-status: Married
----------------------------

I just want to know whether this is
a) possible
b) easy enough to learn

Any tips or advice welcome. Thanks

You want my opinion? Just make it a CSV file, which he can open right up in
Excel.
*******************
~Anne Troy

www.OfficeArticles.com
www.MyExpertsOnline.com


"antfarm" <[email protected]> wrote in
message news:[email protected]...
>
> I am a web designer with very little experience in the intricacies of
> Excel, my problem is that I have a client who wants to import the
> general data emailed to him from his formmail survey on his web page,
> into a pre formatted Excel template - so it is easier to digest and
> send away.
>
> The data looks something like this;
>
> formtype: Registration page
>
> redirect: http://www.anything.com.au/thanks.html
>
> first-name: Joe
>
> homephone: 632-4351603
>
> 4_months_commitment: Yes
>
> submit: Submit registration
>
> nationality: Filipino
>
> languages-spoken: English
>
> gender: Male
>
> age: 38
>
> marital-status: Married
> ----------------------------
>
> I just want to know whether this is
> a) possible
> b) easy enough to learn
>
> Any tips or advice welcome. Thanks
>
>
> --
> antfarm
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> antfarm's Profile:
http://www.excelforum.com/member.php...o&userid=24661
> View this thread: http://www.excelforum.com/showthread...hreadid=382394
>

Hi antfarm,

Answer to both questions is yes.

You can probably make things a bit easier for yourself by sending the
formmail survey data to some sort of text datafile. Then import that to
Excel.

Keep in mind importing XML data into Excel is now very easy.

Or, if the client already has emails in the format below, use the OFFSET
method that I described in the thread "Convert data from rows to columns"
earlier in this newsgroup.

Ed Ferrero
http://edferrero.m6.net

>
> I am a web designer with very little experience in the intricacies of
> Excel, my problem is that I have a client who wants to import the
> general data emailed to him from his formmail survey on his web page,
> into a pre formatted Excel template - so it is easier to digest and
> send away.
>
> The data looks something like this;
>
> formtype: Registration page
>
> redirect: http://www.anything.com.au/thanks.html
>
> first-name: Joe
>
> homephone: 632-4351603
>
> 4_months_commitment: Yes
>
> submit: Submit registration
>
> nationality: Filipino
>
> languages-spoken: English
>
> gender: Male
>
> age: 38
>
> marital-status: Married
> ----------------------------
>
> I just want to know whether this is
> a) possible
> b) easy enough to learn
>
> Any tips or advice welcome. Thanks
>
>
> --
> antfarm
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> antfarm's Profile:
> http://www.excelforum.com/member.php...o&userid=24661
> View this thread: http://www.excelforum.com/showthread...hreadid=382394
>

Do you have any suggestions on the best way to convert such text to CSV, I see there are some software companies that promise to do that (http://www.softinterface.com/) - Can anyone recommend any of these?
Thanks

Originally Posted by Anne Troy

You want my opinion? Just make it a CSV file, which he can open right up in
Excel.
*******************
~Anne Troy





>
> I am a web designer with very little experience in the intricacies of
> Excel, my problem is that I have a client who wants to import the
> general data emailed to him from his formmail survey on his web page,
> into a pre formatted Excel template - so it is easier to digest and
> send away.
>
> The data looks something like this;
>
> formtype: Registration page
>
> redirect: http://www.anything.com.au/thanks.html
>
> first-name: Joe
>
> homephone: 632-4351603
>
> 4_months_commitment: Yes
>
> submit: Submit registration
>
> nationality: Filipino
>
> languages-spoken: English
>
> gender: Male
>
> age: 38
>
> marital-status: Married
> ----------------------------
>
> I just want to know whether this is
> a) possible
> b) easy enough to learn
>
> Any tips or advice welcome. Thanks
>
>
> --
> antfarm
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> antfarm's Profile:[/color]
http://www.excelforum.com/member.php...o&userid=24661
> View this thread: http://www.excelforum.com/showthread...hreadid=382394
>

Do you mean converting the form results to CSV or XML before importing as Anne Troy suggested above? Any tips on the best way to do that?

Re the offset method you mention, I went and did as you describe - got to the stage where the cells were set up and then I didn't know what to do? How to get the data in??

Please excuse my profound ignorance....

[QUOTE=Ed Ferrero]Hi antfarm,

Answer to both questions is yes.

You can probably make things a bit easier for yourself by sending the
formmail survey data to some sort of text datafile. Then import that to
Excel.

Keep in mind importing XML data into Excel is now very easy.

Or, if the client already has emails in the format below, use the OFFSET
method that I described in the thread "Convert data from rows to columns"
earlier in this newsgroup.

Hi antfarm,

Yes, I mean get the web form to output form data to XML if you can do this
easily.
This would make it much easier to import to Excel.

If you can't change the web form, then I suggest going to the OFFSET method.
I have set up a simple example here
http://edferrero.m6.net/ConvertDataColumntoRow.zip
This differs slightly from my earlier post, uses the row number of the
current cell to determine the offset value rather than numbers typed in
cells.

Ed Ferrero
http://edferrero.m6.net

> Do you mean converting the form results to CSV or XML before importing
> as Anne Troy suggested above? Any tips on the best way to do that?
>
> Re the offset method you mention, I went and did as you describe - got
> to the stage where the cells were set up and then I didn't know what to
> do? How to get the data in??
>
> Please excuse my profound ignorance....
>
> Ed Ferrero Wrote:
>> Hi antfarm,
>>
>> Answer to both questions is yes.
>>
>> You can probably make things a bit easier for yourself by sending the
>> formmail survey data to some sort of text datafile. Then import that
>> to
>> Excel.
>>
>> Keep in mind importing XML data into Excel is now very easy.
>>
>> Or, if the client already has emails in the format below, use the
>> OFFSET
>> method that I described in the thread "Convert data from rows to
>> columns"
>> earlier in this newsgroup.
>
>
> --
> antfarm
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> antfarm's Profile:
> http://www.excelforum.com/member.php...o&userid=24661
> View this thread: http://www.excelforum.com/showthread...hreadid=382394
>

Ed. I apologise for not replying to this post much much sooner, I've been otherwise occupied - I had a look at your file you very kindly supplied, and it looks just like what my client needs/wants, I shall pass on your tips asap.

Once again thankyou for your effort (I'm blown away....). This is a great forum...

G.