Pasting into columns...

[silas]

Hi. I've used Excel 97 for years. One of the things I did frequently was
copy info from my bank accounts and paste (special/unformatted text) into a
workbook. The data always pasted neatly into my preformatted columns, e.g.,
a line reading "02/28/2007 Check 2100 $500.00 $1500.00" went into columns
headed Date, Transaction, Amount, Balance.

Now I've upgraded to Excel 2003 (in Windows Vista) and when I paste the same
data it all goes into the first column, meaning I have to cut "Check 2100",
"$500.00", and "$1500.00" and paste each individually into the appropriate
column. You can't imagine how frustrating that is when entering a dozen
transactions at a time.

Using the space delimiting option won't work as there are sometimes multiple
words for one column, for instance in the Transactions column I might have
"CHECKCARD 0228 WAL-MART #8812 NEWPORT CITY GA 841123015564 055983247"

Other than selecting each row, adding commas or tabs, then doing a Text to
Column, how can I get Excel 2003 to act like Excel 97?

Thanks.

silas

 

[Joerg]

Hmm... it seems to me that Excel 2003 does the right thing. How did Excel 97
"know" which multiple words go into one column and which words should be
pasted into separate columns? You didn't elaborate on the format of your
account statements. Is the source a web based document? If yes and if the
data are layed out in a HTML table, Excel 2003 will paste them into separate
columns.

Would the fixed width delimiting option work for you?

Joerg