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Excel importing text file as one long row

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    Excel importing text file as one long row

    A (hopefully) quick question: I'm importing a text file into Excel 2003. The file has a few hundred text strings separated by semicolons. When I import it, I specify that the values are delimited by the semicolons, and Excel imports it as one long row with each value in a separate column. Is it possible for me to tell Excel to import the file so that each value is in the first column of a separate row? Thanks in advance to all who respond.

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    Forum Expert NBVC's Avatar
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    Re: Excel importing text file as one long row

    So is just "one" column of data you are trying to import?
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    Re: Excel importing text file as one long row

    Quote Originally Posted by NBVC View Post
    So is just "one" column of data you are trying to import?
    Thanks for your response! Yes, the text file is one extremely long line of text, with semicolons separating the various strings in the line. I would like to import the data into a single column.

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    Forum Expert NBVC's Avatar
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    Re: Excel importing text file as one long row

    I would suggest you delimit by semicolon into 1 row then copy that row go to the first cell you want to start the column in (can't overlap that original row, though) and do a Paste|Special >> Transpose... this will send it vertical.

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    Re: Excel importing text file as one long row

    Or edit the text file and change the each semicolon to a carriage return & line feed.
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    Re: Excel importing text file as one long row

    Quote Originally Posted by NBVC View Post
    I would suggest you delimit by semicolon into 1 row then copy that row go to the first cell you want to start the column in (can't overlap that original row, though) and do a Paste|Special >> Transpose... this will send it vertical.
    Not a bad idea, but my text file is so large that it generates more than 8192 columns, or whatever the maximum is, so I end up losing data.
    Quote Originally Posted by shg View Post
    Or edit the text file and change the each semicolon to a carriage return & line feed.
    I hadn't thought of that approach; I could do that with vi, I suppose.

    Thanks for the suggestions!

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    Re: Excel importing text file as one long row

    easiest way is to use word
    find ; replace with ^p then paste into excel
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    Re: Excel importing text file as one long row

    Quote Originally Posted by martindwilson View Post
    easiest way is to use word
    find ; replace with ^p then paste into excel
    That worked like a charm! Thanks again!

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