Why does the skip blanks (paste special) function not work?

[toomuchwrinkles]

Sometimes I export data from another progam in to Exel. The export always
inserts blank lines (rows) between the data. There are hundreds of rows of
data and it's very time consuming to manually delete these lines. I try to
copy the data and paste special to a new worksheet using the skip blanks
option, but it doesn't work. Any idea/feedback as to why?

 

[Sean Timmons]

Well, I'd think highlight the entire spreadsheet and sort by a column would
solve your issue...

The fields may not be blank. They may have a " ". Typically, you can find
this out by hitting CTRL then down arrow while at top of the list. If the
cursor goes right past your blank rows, they aren't technically blank.

HTH!

 

[Gord Dibben]

Skip blanks is not designed for that purpose.

See help on "skip blanks" for an explanation of what that command means.

Basically it won't delete data in the destination range if source range
contains blank cells.

To remove blanks rows, select a column and F5>Special>Blanks>OK

Edit>Delete>Entire Rows.


Gord Dibben MS Excel MVP