Let us say I need to copy a list of names from a webpage. Since I don't want to retain the formatting that is there in the webpage, I currently use Paste Special→"Match Destination format". This is simple and clean.
But Excel also removes any extra spaces present within the string.
e.g. ABC DEF will become ABC DEF.
This is also true for leading and trailing spaces. I believe this is the TRIM function at work which is part of the default settings.
What can I do to apply new formatting without applying the TRIM function? (Other than pasting with source formatting and changing the format manually?)
I think the question can be extended to other parts of the default settings. e.g. the default number formatting in Excel may not be what you want. I looked at the settings under Excel→Options but could not find the settings that specified number/text formatting.
Try to set that column formatting as Text (Manually) and performing Paste Special Values will consider the value as Text without changing anything in the pasted data.
Related
I am needing to customize cells with simple thousands format, like 1000, without any separator or decimal.
However, I wish to remove text fonts other than a number when they are input.
For example, I want to input 120118, however in my paper from which I am copying that figures, it is formatted as a date, thereby 12/01/18. I am needing Excel to simply keep it as 120118 after typing, removing the slash (/). I have seen similar settings in access queries.
Have you tried simply pasting only the cell value with:
Selection.PasteSpecial Paste:=xlPasteValues
Or just clear the cell format and format it again with your desired format.
Try:
Selecting the range
Home > Number > Number Format (or Ctrl+1 I think) > Custom
Enter ddmmyy
Okay
Can be done programmatically e.g.
Thisworkbook.worksheets("Sheet1").range("A1:A50").numberformat = "ddmmyy"
The above would only be a visual/cosmetic change and the internal value of each cell would still be a date (technically a number) for calculation purposes.
However, if I've misunderstood and you instead want to go from the date 21 Jan 2018 to the number 210118, I think you would need to get the range's value(s), format as DDMMYY string, then clng() - or maybe (DD*10000) + (MM*100) + (YY) might work, then format as "000000" to preserve leading zeros.
So, I have a custom function that concatenate different cells and put a comma between words.
For example, say I have "ABCD" "BC" then, this function will
output ABCD, BC. Now the problem is that the text will overflow in a cell and overlap with the cell next to that. In order to solve this problem,
I am thinking of just replacing the concatenated word with "Multiple" if more than 3 words are combined. Is there anyway to do this in a cell?
You can do this with conditional formatting AND keep the original underlying string as a raw value for other purposes.
Select the cells with the formula and create a conditional formatting rule based on a formula. =LEN(C2)-LEN(SUBSTITUTE(C2, ",", ""))>1
Click Format and go to the Numbers tab. Choose Custom from the list down the left side and supply the following for the Type: ;;;[color13]_((\multipl\e) I've opted to also make the font dark blue (colorindex # 13) and indent from the left.
Click OK to accept the formatting and then OK again to create the new rule.
As you can see in the sample image above, the underlying raw value remains (shown in the formula bar) but (multiple) is displayed.
More on custom number formatting codes at Number format codes
I have a LibreOffice Calc spreadsheet that uses some conditional formatting of cells. I would like to copy it into Writer as a table. The colours/formats of the cells should remain as they were due to the conditional formatting in Calc. Unfortunately when I do that, the formatting vanishes.
How can I copy it keeping the formatting?
Of course the Writer version no longer has to be conditional, but I need to keep current colours.
My work is done so eventually I can do the trick in Calc first (abandon the "conditional" part, and just preserve the formatting as - is). However due to amount of data I would prefer not to do it manually.
Is macro the only way to do that?
Use Insert -> Object -> OLE Object
Choose Create from file
Pick the right .ods file.
If you want to modify further (in my case - I need to create many tables from one spreadsheet as the original file is humongous - up to CL column) - do not tick "Link to the file" option.
After pressing OK, the spreadsheet is inserted as is (cloned and embedded), with the conditional formatting. Can be further modified (e.g. rows/cols can be deleted, hidden or whatever is needed). The conditional formatting remains active.
I personally prefer to copy as an image. This ensures the format is always exactly as it was in the spreadsheet and that no weird OLE/DDE links go wrong.
However, you specifically ask for a table. For that there are three (or 2.5) options:
Insert the entire as spreadsheet as an object. In Windows that can be done as Ister describes in his answer. This will be editable as an inline mini-sheet (Writer will invoke Calc for any editing actions).
Insert a part of the sheet as an object: Select what you want in the document, copy to the clipboard, go to Writer and select Edit->Paste Special. Then select the OLE option, or if on Linux, select "calc8". This will be editable as an inline mini-sheet.
Insert as HTML. This creates a standalone table. Formatting will not be 100% as in the sheet, as fonts, etc, will be reset by Writer, but it is a native Writer table that you can manipulate in Writer without invoking Calc. Colors, etc, are preserved.
If you use any of the object embedding options, you'll notice that formulae are kept intact (when not referring the data outside the pasted sheet or region). If you want all the data to be verbatim, then you need an intermediate step:
Select the data in your original sheet that you wish
Copy to the clipboard
Create a new sheet and place the cursor in the same spot as the first cell of the copied data (e.g. if your copied region is B4:X99, then place the cursor in B4 of the new sheet)
Select Edit->Paste Special
In the Paste Special window, check only the following options and click OK:
Text
Numbers
Date & Time
Formats
So, I am trying to convert some xls files to a csv, and everything works great, except for one part. The SaveAs function in the Excel interop seems to export all of the rows (including blank ones). I can see these rows when I look at the file using Notepad. (All of the rows I expect, 15 rows with two single quotes, then the rest are just blank). I then have a stored procedure that takes this csv and imports to the desired table (this works on spreadsheets that have been manually converted to csv (e.g. open, File--> Saves As, etc.)
Here is the line of code I am using for my SavesAs in my code. I have tried xlCSV, xlCSVWindows, and xlCSVDOS as my file format, but they all do the same thing.
wb.SaveAs(aFiles(i).Replace(".xls", "B.csv"), Excel.XlFileFormat.xlCSVMSDOS, , , , False) 'saves a copy of the spreadsheet as a csv
So, is there some additional step/setting I need to do to not get the extraneuos rows to show up in the csv?
Note that if I open this newly created csv, and then click Save As, and choose csv, my procedure likes it again.
When you create a CSV from a Workbook, the CSV is generated based upon your UsedRange. Since the UsedRange can be expanded simply by having formatting applied to a cell (without any contents) this is why you are getting blank rows. (You can also get blank columns due to this issue.)
When you open the generated CSV all of those no-content cells no longer contribute to the UsedRange due to having no content or formatting (since only values are saved in CSVs).
You can correct this issue by updating your used range before the save. Here's a brief sub I wrote in VBA that would do the trick. This code would make you lose all formatting, but I figured that wasn't important since you're saving to a CSV anyway. I'll leave the conversion to VB.Net up to you.
Sub CorrectUsedRange()
Dim values
Dim usedRangeAddress As String
Dim r As Range
'Get UsedRange Address prior to deleting Range
usedRangeAddress = ActiveSheet.UsedRange.Address
'Store values of cells to array.
values = ActiveSheet.UsedRange
'Delete all cells in the sheet
ActiveSheet.Cells.Delete
'Restore values to their initial locations
Range(usedRangeAddress) = values
End Sub
Tested your code with VBA and Excel2007 - works nice.
However, I could replicate it somewhat, by formatting an empty cell below my data-cells to bold. Then I would get empty single quotes in the csv. BUT this was also the case, when I used SaveAs.
So, my suggestion would be to clear all non-data cells, then to save your file. This way you can at least exclude this point of error.
I'm afraid that may not be enough. It seems there's an Excel bug that makes even deleting the non-data cells insufficient to prevent them from being written out as empty cells when saving as csv.
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office_2010-excel/excel-bug-save-as-csv-saves-previously-deleted/2da9a8b4-50c2-49fd-a998-6b342694681e
Another way, without a script. Hit Ctrl+End . If that ends up in a row AFTER your real data, then select the rows from the first one until at least the row this ends up on, right click, and "Clear Contents".
I have to read the text from the cells of a column in excel and search for it in another sheet.
say for example, the text in sheet1 column A is "Evoked Potential Amplitude N2 - P2." This has to be searched in sheet2 column C. This fails because a question mark appears before the "E" which is not present in the value in the sheet2.
Both are representation of same character in different application. Maybe someone might recognize it.
In the excel sheet I don't see any junk characters, but while handling it in the vb code I see a question mark before the word - Evoke.
This data was extracted from a share point application and this character (?) is not visible to the plain eye. Search and replace functions are not working in this case.
Unicode 8203 is a zero-width space. I'm not sure where it's coming from. It is probably a flaw in the way the data is imported into Excel which you haven't noticed before, but it might be worth fixing.
In the meantime, you can simply use the Mid() function in Excel VBA to remove the unwanted character. For example instead of
x = cells(1,1).value
use
x = Mid(cells(1,1).value,2)
which deletes the first character.