Opening several space delimited files

A

Alex

I have been sent several files that I want to open in
Excel. What is the procedure to convert files from
..txt to .xls without manually doing it for each file?
 
D

Dave Peterson

If these flat files are always the same layout, you may want to record a macro
when you do it by hand the next time.

Start a new workbook.
Tools|macro|Record new macro
Do all your importing and reformatting.
Include all the things you like (worksheet headers, print headers/footers/freeze
panes/Data|Filter|Autofilter)

Stop recording and save that workbook with the recorded code in it.
Put a giant button from the forms toolbar on the first worksheet in that
"importer" workbook. Assign your macro to the button.

You'll probably have to adjust the code a little to make it more generic. When
you recorded your macro, you got something that looked like:

Option Explicit
Sub Macro1()

Workbooks.OpenText Filename:="C:\myfile.txt", Origin:=437, StartRow:=1, _
DataType:=xlFixedWidth, FieldInfo:=Array(Array(0, 1), Array(15, 1), _
Array(41, 1))

End Sub

Well, instead of having your filename in the code, you can give the user a
chance to pick it themselves (take a look at getopenfilename in VBA's help):

Sub macro1A()

Dim myFileName As Variant

myFileName = Application.GetOpenFilename(filefilter:="Text Files, *.Txt", _
Title:="Pick a File")

If myFileName = False Then
MsgBox "Ok, try later" 'user hit cancel
Exit Sub
End If

Workbooks.OpenText Filename:=myFileName '....rest of recorded code here!

End Sub

And you may need to adjust some ranges (depending on what you did when you
recorded the macro). Post back with a snippet of your code (not the workbook)
and explain your problem.

But now whenever you need to import a text file with that layout, you can just
open your "importer" workbook and click the giant button.
 

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