converting from word format to .csv

[Brownman]

Hi,
I'm using word 2002 and I have a numeric file that I want to import into a
works spreadsheet.
My problem is that Word will not allow me to convert to a .csv format, that
isn't one of the filetypes that word will write to in the save as box.
I have tried .txt format and works spreadsheet will read it but the records
on each line are all in one cell.
Anybody know how to do this?
Regards,
Tony

 

[Jay Freedman]

Hi,
I'm using word 2002 and I have a numeric file that I want to import into a
works spreadsheet.
My problem is that Word will not allow me to convert to a .csv format, that
isn't one of the filetypes that word will write to in the save as box.
I have tried .txt format and works spreadsheet will read it but the records
on each line are all in one cell.
Anybody know how to do this?
Regards,
Tony

Go to Tools > Options > Save and check the box for "Save data only for
forms".

Save as a Plain Text (*.txt) file. You can change the extension to
..csv, which won't make any difference to Word. If it asks about text
encoding, accept the default Windows encoding.

 

[Brownman]

Go to Tools > Options > Save and check the box for "Save data only for
forms".

Save as a Plain Text (*.txt) file. You can change the extension to
..csv, which won't make any difference to Word. If it asks about text
encoding, accept the default Windows encoding.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so all may benefit.
.

Thanks for the reply, I still can't get the data that is in a word document
in a format that works spreadsheet can open apart from a .txt document but
the trouble is that the data on each row (4 columns) id inputted into 1 cell.
Any way to format the word document to make each column separate?
Thanks,
Tony

 

[Jay Freedman]

Thanks for the reply, I still can't get the data that is in a word document
in a format that works spreadsheet can open apart from a .txt document but
the trouble is that the data on each row (4 columns) id inputted into 1 cell.
Any way to format the word document to make each column separate?
Thanks,
Tony

The first question, which I should have asked before rather than
simply assuming, is: Is your Word file a protected form with text form
fields in it, like the ones discussed at
http://www.computorcompanion.com/LPMArticle.asp?ID=22? If that isn't
the case, then the "Save data only for forms" opton won't help at all.

When you do have a protected form, the contents of the fields are
placed in the saved text file with quotes around them and commas
between them -- that's the definition of a .csv file. Any program that
claims to open .csv files must be able to handle that.

Open the text file in a text editor such as Notepad. What does it look
like?

 

[Brownman]

The first question, which I should have asked before rather than
simply assuming, is: Is your Word file a protected form with text form
fields in it, like the ones discussed at
http://www.computorcompanion.com/LPMArticle.asp?ID=22? If that isn't
the case, then the "Save data only for forms" opton won't help at all.

When you do have a protected form, the contents of the fields are
placed in the saved text file with quotes around them and commas
between them -- that's the definition of a .csv file. Any program that
claims to open .csv files must be able to handle that.

Open the text file in a text editor such as Notepad. What does it look
like?

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so all may benefit.
.

Hi Jay,

Thanks for your reply, the document opened in wordpad looks the same as the
..doc file in word without the separate pages. There is no separator between
the columns apart from a space. This data is the output from a data recorder
which saves it in word format. the data is organised in 4 columns per row. I
have about 3000 rows.
Can this help?

Thanks,

Tony

 

[JoAnn Paules]

Copy your data and paste it into Excel. Then use Text to Columns.

--

JoAnn Paules
MVP Microsoft [Publisher]
Tech Editor for "Microsoft Publisher 2007 For Dummies"



(snipped for brevity)

 

[Jay Freedman]

Hi Jay,

Thanks for your reply, the document opened in wordpad looks the same as the
.doc file in word without the separate pages. There is no separator between
the columns apart from a space. This data is the output from a data recorder
which saves it in word format. the data is organised in 4 columns per row. I
have about 3000 rows.
Can this help?

Thanks,

Tony

Tony, it helps somewhat -- maybe. I don't know what capabilities the
Works spreadsheet program has, compared to Excel. I'll describe a
couple of possibilities.

When you ask Excel to open a plain text (*.txt) file, it opens a
dialog that lets you tell it which columns of text correspond to cells
in the wroksheet. You can drag separator lines to the right places in
a sample preview. If Works has that feature, just open the .txt
version of your data file and make the appropriate settings.

If Works can't do that, maybe you can borrow the use of Excel from
someone else long enough to load the .txt file and resave it as a real
..csv file. Then you can take it back and open it in Works.

The last choice -- because it's more work and possibly prone to errors
-- is to use the Replace feature in Word to modify the data into the
format of a real .csv file. Each text item that contains any spaces
should be surrounded by double-quote characters, and each data item
should be separated from the next one in the same row by a comma. This
would take two or three wildcard replacements
(http://www.gmayor.com/replace_using_wildcards.htm) followed by
thorough proofreading to be sure the replacements haven't introduced
any errors.

 

[Brownman]

Tony, it helps somewhat -- maybe. I don't know what capabilities the
Works spreadsheet program has, compared to Excel. I'll describe a
couple of possibilities.

When you ask Excel to open a plain text (*.txt) file, it opens a
dialog that lets you tell it which columns of text correspond to cells
in the wroksheet. You can drag separator lines to the right places in
a sample preview. If Works has that feature, just open the .txt
version of your data file and make the appropriate settings.

If Works can't do that, maybe you can borrow the use of Excel from
someone else long enough to load the .txt file and resave it as a real
..csv file. Then you can take it back and open it in Works.

The last choice -- because it's more work and possibly prone to errors
-- is to use the Replace feature in Word to modify the data into the
format of a real .csv file. Each text item that contains any spaces
should be surrounded by double-quote characters, and each data item
should be separated from the next one in the same row by a comma. This
would take two or three wildcard replacements
(http://www.gmayor.com/replace_using_wildcards.htm) followed by
thorough proofreading to be sure the replacements haven't introduced
any errors.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so all may benefit.
.

Thanks for your help Jay, after reading your last post it reminded me of the
replace command in wordpad. I counted the spaces between the data and put
those in the "find what" in the replace button of the edit tab and then
inserted the comma in the "replace with" box and voila, a csv type file. I
just saved it and opened it in works spreadsheet no problem formatted
correctly. Thanks one again for your help, Tony