converting rtf file to access2002 for final output to excel

[DK]

Thank you in advance for your help.

I have an address label file in .rtf format. It has 3 X
10 labels on one page totally about 14,000 address
labels. My final goal is to convert it into MS Excel 2002
so i can get under one column the first name, the second
column the last name, the thrid column the street address
and so on.

In Excel 2002, I tried using the Edit, Past Special,
Paste as Text function but the data is not user friendly.
By using this approach, I will have to use brute force in
cutting and pasting names and addresses in the respective
columns described above. Not good when you have 14,000
address, right? Accordingly, I thought of importing
this .rtf file into Access 2002, converting it into user-
friendly data and then exporting this data into Excel
2002? Does this make sense to you? If yes, can you
suggest a way of imprting this .rtf file into access and
achieving what I have set out above?

Your help would be highly appreciated.

Regards,

DK

 

[John Nurick]

Hi DK,

The best thing to do is to go back to the original source of the data
and get the owner to export it in a friendlier format. If you are making
legitimate use of the data this shouldn't be a problem.

If for some reason the owner can't give you a sensibly-formatted file,
here's how I'd do it:

1) Open the file in Word. If it's formatted as a table,
a) rearrange it into a single column,
b) use a series of search-and-reaplace to convert
Name
Street
City State Zip
to
Name<tab>Street<tab>City<tab>State<tab>Zip
c) tidy up, convert to text, save as plain text, and import into
Access.

If it's not formatted as a table but has a single tab between items in
separate columns, convert it to a table and proceed as above.

If it's formatted with multiple tab stops and spaces between columns,
I'd save it as a textfile and write a Perl or VBScript script to
re-arrange it into a neat delimited file.