I've noticed that if I use the text-to-columns feature with comma as the delimiter, any comma-delimited data I paste into Excel after that will be automatically split into columns.
This makes me think Excel must have some kind of global delimiter.
If this is true, how would I set this global delimiter using Excel VBA? Is it possible to do this directly, or do I need to "trick" Excel by doing a text-to-columns on some junk data, then delete the data?
My ultimate goal is to be able to paste in a bunch of data from different files using a macro, and have Excel automatically split it into columns according to the delimiter I set.
Junk data is the right answer. See here
http://spreadsheetpage.com/index.php/tip/clearing_the_text_to_columns_parameters
Related
This is perhaps one of those many times discussed questions with solutions more specific to actual system that outputs the data into a CSV file.
Is there a simple way to export data like 3332401187555, 9992401187000 into a CSV file in a way that later when opened in Excel, the columns won't show them in "scientific" format? Should this be important, the data is retrieved directly by an SQL SELECT statement from any DBMS.
This also means that I've tried solutions like surrounding the values with apostrophes '3332401187555' and the Excel cell recognizes those as text and doesn't do any conversions/masking. Was wondering if there was a more elegant way without actually it being a pre-set Excel template with text data fields.
1. Try exporting the numbers prefixed with single quote. Example: '3332401187555.
2. In excel, select the column containing number values
and then select Number in Format Cells.
Just have to save your file with Excel the option CSV file. And you have the in file in requested format.
Frequently in my job I need to generate reports with lots of tables of inputs and results. Especially for the result tables, one change in analysis may require editing a dozen spreadsheets. I'd like to create a macro in word that pulls in data from a spreadsheet, with each table on it's own tab, so that if I update any of those tables in excel the word document tables will also update. Given the number of tables/data points, I don't want to have to tell the macro to pull each single data point. The aim would be to reduce time and errors from manual entry.
I'm thinking this would involve the following steps, but not sure how to go about them:
1) Define the name/size for each table in word with matching name/size in excel
2) Tell the macro to pull the data into a table format
I'm not sure if this is possible as so far I've only seen how to insert a caption or a text box, not insert or update entire tables. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Depending on what you're doing, you may not even need any VBA code.
If you copy a range from Excel and paste it into Word using Paste Special with the 'paste link' option, any subsequent changes in the Excel range will automatically be reflected in the document when the workbook is saved. And, if you name the range in Excel before copying/pasting, the Word content will expend/contract to reflect changes in the named range's scope in Excel. A variety of paste formats is supported.
Alternatively, you might use a DATABASE field in Word.
I'm trying to run a duplicate check In which varying data is pulled from a website and compared to a master list, the master list being stored in Excel. The information from the website is read from a table in which has line breaks. These breaks are translated over to the data collection they are initially stored in. Some of the data from the website us eventually written to the master list in Excel. So when I read the master list back into Blue Prism to run a duplicate check, the rows that have line breaks are written into a collection as multiple rows (ex. I should have on 7 rows in my collections but am getting 42). Since the rows are not EXACTLY the same between the 2 collections, when it runs the automation does not recognize the duplicates.
The easiest way to solve this would be if I could make the collection rows have no line breaks as soon as the data is read. I've attempted to use the calculation stage to do so with no luck. I'm not sure if it is actually possible to do this, but would appreciate any direction.
Record an Excel macro to do the data sorting/cleaning in Excel (possibly Text To Columns, etc..) and then include the running of the macro as part of your Blue Prism process by using an action stage and the MS Excel VBO - Run Macro. Get the process to create an Excel instance (and create a handle data item from that stage), then use Open Workbook (whatever workbook you store your Macro in) and then use the MS Excel VBO - Run Macro (use the same handle created earlier and type in the name of the "macro").
It sounds like what is happening is that the MS Excel VBO is grabbing the data from the Excel Worksheet wholesale.
This is to say that it's accessing your Worksheet table, copying the cell values BUT not the cell formatting data, and then dumping the values into a BP collection.
Since it did not bring along any of the original cell formatting data to reference when it went to populate the collection it's just breaking up the values based on crturn/line breaks. Thus, your collection is organized based on that, and not on the original Worksheet cell.
So, with that said, on to a solution!
Solution 1
Brute force the organization of the incoming Excel cell data to the collection by looping over the Excel Worksheet cell-by-cell.
Run a loop, and in that loop have BP go into the Excel Worksheet and grab the first populated cell it comes across. Run a formatting/cleanup Calculation stage over the data. Dump the cell value into a single collection field.
Repeat.
This is...inelegant, expensive at best, and not at all recommended for any medium to large dataset. But it's definitely the best way to do string manipulation and value comparisons before it hits your collection. Since it sounds like your using a Master template then you as-well know what the expected format of your data should be.
This method will enable you implement Trim(), Concat(), or Split() in a Calculation stage to better organize your incoming data before you dump it into a collection.
This is also basically what I think you're already trying to do, but cell-by-cell instead of Worksheet row-by-row or table-by-table.
Solution 2
Clean up the table data you grab from the website before you dump it into the Excel Worksheet.
This is basically Solution 1, but in reverse. Simply format/cleanup your data before it hits you Excel Worksheet.
I'm not sure this is any better than Solution 1, but, you know, it's something...
Solution 3
Format the cell data IN the MS Excel Worksheet itself.
Basically rearrange the cells and cell data in the Excel Worksheet into a more predictable format by using the Split, Trim, Merge, or other actions included in the MS Excel VBO. You can also do this using the Data - OLEDB utility object, but that requires some pretty solid understanding of SQL syntax.
This would look like this using the MS Excel VBO:
Grab the Excel Worksheet data wholesale and dump into a collection
Count the rows/fields of the collection
Is that number consistent with the desired/expected format of your data?
If not, have the bot go back into the Excel Worksheet and reformat the cells by removing any carriage returns/line breaks/whatever else
Repeat.
However, I'm always reluctant to reformat any original source, as it's then hard to figure out what wrong and where it went wrong when you've changed the original structure of your data. So it's best to always make a copy of the Worksheet before you make any manipulation.
Unfortunately I don't have access to my BP environment at the moment or I'd provide you with the act object actions you'd need to do any of this, my bad. Once I do I'll update this answer.
I have 1000 files in Excel format (Excel 2010) and each file contains 7 sheets with data.
This is an example for Excel sheet.
Is there a way to automatically convert the numbers that are stored as text to numbers, without affecting the actual text data? (maybe by VBA macros ? but I am a beginner in VBA code)
I can give you an algorithm, but I don't have time to write the entire code. I would write it in a seperate workbook, for repeatability. You can then either hardcode the 7 file names, or you can make an input for file name (the latter is a bit more flexible, if you need to use it for more files later).
Open a file
Loop all sheets
Loop all cells
If IsNumeric(Cell.Value) > Change format
You should be able to Google your way to the separate parts. Once you have some actual code, you can ask for more help on StackOverflow.
I have bulk of data in an Excel sheet and I saved it into .csv format like this:
101,shortname,null,Description
My question is how to place single quotes for text data like
101,'shortname',null,'description'
?
101,shortname,null,Description
1) Is this in the single cell or different cells in excel?
2) Do you want to update the excel sheet or just want to put that data in mysql?
If you want to take data from excel and put it into mysql you can use apache-poi libraries.
apache-poi
I used this library to update the excel sheet from mysql database.
Get an editor capable of doing search/replace with regular expressions
Write a regular expression that will update the text the way you want it to
Here's an example how to do what you ask in Visual Studio's text editor:
Find what:
{[^,]+},{[^,]+},{[^,]+},{[^,]+}
Replace with:
\1,'\2',\3,'\4'
If you have some other editor, go check its documentation on regular expressions.
For VIM check out vimregex.com, something like this might work:
s:\([^,]\+\),\([^,]\+\),\([^,]\+\),\([^,]\+\):\1,'\2',\3,'\4':
so you want your csv data to add a single quote and restore in the same file? I this is so, simply copy/cut that column in some other column and use an excel formula like suppose you have your shortname in column B cut-paste it to column Z and use formula =CONCATENATE("'",Z#,"'") # is the row number