+ Reply to Thread
Results 1 to 3 of 3

Reformatting one column of text into a workable table

  1. #1
    Registered User
    Join Date
    05-09-2010
    Location
    Earth
    MS-Off Ver
    Excel 2007
    Posts
    2

    Reformatting one column of text into a workable table

    Hello.!

    I work in a lab, and it is inventory-taking time. We recently started using a website to track all our chemicals, but the site we use does not let you choose a good format when you want to print a full inventory list, nor does it let you sort the list by anything other than chemical name. So I'm trying to paste it to excel and format it to something that is more useful so i can sort by location, storage color, etc and also print a hard-copy that will be easier to read and won't take 300 pieces of paper (see attached and you'll know what i mean).

    I feel like this should be easy, but I'm pretty new with excel and keep having some troubles. I can (mostly) get the data into 2 workable columns and then transpose some of the useful stuff to rows, but can't figure out a way to have it transpose in an array or whatever so it auto-wraps to a new row every 14 cells.

    Also the fact that the name of each chemical doesn't already have "name:" in front of it makes things annoying as well cause i used the colon as the delimeter in the text-to-column tool to split the data to two columns. Using the colon does screw up a lot of the notes though cause they often have colons in them too, so in those rows I get an extra 4 or 5 columns if we have multiple bottles of the same reagent.

    Anyway I won't attach my botched attempts at getting this to work the proper way, but i can if needed. I have attached a sample before and after though. The before is completely raw how it pastes from the website.

    thanks for any help :>
    Attached Files Attached Files
    Last edited by handsomehed; 05-09-2010 at 02:42 PM.

  2. #2
    Forum Expert JBeaucaire's Avatar
    Join Date
    03-21-2004
    Location
    Bakersfield, CA
    MS-Off Ver
    2010, 2016, Office 365
    Posts
    33,492

    Re: Reformatting one column of text into a workable table

    If you put the exact strings to "strip out" of the strings from the main sheet, including the space at the end, like "Location: ", in the titles of the "results" sheet, you can do this reorganization with a couple of formulas.

    The "data" sheet appears to present the same # of rows per set of data, so the first cell in each "group" can be taken as is, but the rest need to strip off the title. So the two formulas needed are shown in this sample sheet.
    Attached Files Attached Files
    _________________
    Microsoft MVP 2010 - Excel
    Visit: Jerry Beaucaire's Excel Files & Macros

    If you've been given good help, use the icon below to give reputation feedback, it is appreciated.
    Always put your code between code tags. [CODE] your code here [/CODE]

    ?None of us is as good as all of us? - Ray Kroc
    ?Actually, I *am* a rocket scientist.? - JB (little ones count!)

  3. #3
    Registered User
    Join Date
    05-09-2010
    Location
    Earth
    MS-Off Ver
    Excel 2007
    Posts
    2

    Re: Reformatting one column of text into a workable table

    haha wow, that's perfect.

    repped. thanks so much

+ Reply to Thread

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts

Search Engine Friendly URLs by vBSEO 3.6.0 RC 1