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SpreadEveryone: The Fetchland Excel wire

101 watchers

GlennR Mar 2019 9:35am, 22 Mar 2019 41,491 posts	0 GlennR How the hell have I managed to miss the Text to Columns tool in Excel for all these years? When did that creep in?
GregP Mar 2019 9:37am, 22 Mar 2019 111,401 posts	0 GregP Recently-ish I think. It's outrageously useful.
SPR Mar 2019 9:39am, 22 Mar 2019 27,593 posts	0 SPR Text to Columns tool? Is this different from standard Text to Columns? I've never known Excel without it of it isn't.
larkim Mar 2019 9:40am, 22 Mar 2019 7,074 posts	0 larkim At least 15 years I reckon. Solved many a dodgy data import with that.
FergusG Mar 2019 9:41am, 22 Mar 2019 3,025 posts	0 FergusG I’ve missed that too. It looks way simpler than buggering about with SEARCH, MID, LEFT, RIGHT, etc.
SPR Mar 2019 9:43am, 22 Mar 2019 27,594 posts	0 SPR It was definitely there in Excel 2003.
larkim Mar 2019 9:47am, 22 Mar 2019 7,075 posts	0 larkim Having had to suffer financial systems which output in raw print files right up to the current day, any tool that lets me drop something from notepad into excel and reliably get the columns right has always had my attention, so I've been using T2C for years. Not infallible - I used to use the brilliant "Monarch" software for some imports when the printouts were more complex (multi line, grouped by headers etc etc). Had much fun with that!
SPR Mar 2019 9:53am, 22 Mar 2019 27,595 posts	0 SPR As well as it's standard use, Text to Columns is great for converting text formatted columns back to numbers and vice versa.
SPR Mar 2019 9:54am, 22 Mar 2019 27,596 posts	0 SPR *its!
Badger Mar 2019 12:32pm, 22 Mar 2019 10,548 posts	0 Badger I'm in exactly Glenn's position. Damnit.