File splitting by column

  • Thread starter Thread starter Mark R-S
  • Start date Start date
M

Mark R-S

Anyone know of a good file splitting utility that allows specifying the
number of columns? I need to split tab-delimited text files into 256-column
chunks so they can be imported into Excel.

Thanks,

Mark R-S
 
Please clarify. Excel imports tab delimited files into columns, parsing on
the tab character.

It would be File / Open / (type) Text Files .TXT, then follow the ensuing
instructions.
 
Bill Yerkes said:
Please clarify. Excel imports tab delimited files into columns, parsing on
the tab character.

It would be File / Open / (type) Text Files .TXT, then follow the ensuing
instructions.
Click to expand...

I didn't get why he was talking "256-column" either, initially. Turns out
that it's an Excel limit which he's trying to deal with.

<Pasting external quotes>

EXCEL LIMITS

Q. I need more than 256 columns and/or 65536 Rows.

A1. Excel has no more. Quattro Pro v9 has 1 million rows and
18278 columns.
. . .
A2. You could of course transpose your data requirements so that
the columns become rows & the rows become columns, and hence
you would then have 65536 "columns" & just 256 rows.

</Pasting external quotes>
 
Mark R-S said:
Anyone know of a good file splitting utility that allows specifying the
number of columns? I need to split tab-delimited text files into 256-column
chunks so they can be imported into Excel.
Click to expand...

I understand column to mean, for this need, horizontal character position.

ADJUST LINE BREAKS
Text based utility to break lines after X characters

http://home.planet.nl/~gaale131/download/Adjust_Line_Breaks.zip
MID <[email protected]>

Drag drop your file to this tool (else use it via clipboard), and tell it 256
for the position where you want hard breaks. It's fast and easy.
 
Bill Yerkes said:
Please clarify. Excel imports tab delimited files into columns, parsing on
the tab character.
Click to expand...

The OP wasn't clear about his 256 barrier in relation to his source files.
Excel has limits on cell widths and total columns. Out of impulse I did
a Google on the thing. That left me the opinion that his best approach is
to not bother manipulating the files externally - but instead, stay your
route, of having Excel deal with it. It appears the simplest/best approach
would be to let Excel break things into multiple worksheets.

Importing text files with 257 or more columns
http://office.microsoft.com/assistance/preview.aspx?AssetID=HA010548191033

Import data into two or more worksheets
http://office.microsoft.com/assistance/preview.aspx?AssetID=HA010548201033
 
Mark R-S said:
Anyone know of a good file splitting utility that allows specifying the
number of columns? I need to split tab-delimited text files into 256-column
chunks so they can be imported into Excel.

Thanks,

Mark R-S
Click to expand...

There is a freeware pgm called CSVDb that (I think) has an option
to use tabs as column delimiters. I don't have it at my holiday
location, so can't check this for sure. If the above is true, I think you
could use it to manpulate your column data and export to Excel.
It mostly works pretty well, though I have found some of its
features to be slow (sorry can't be more specific).
http://home.hccnet.nl/s.j.francke/t2t/text2table.htm

If this doesn't work for you, I have a text file splitter that I
think I could quite easily enhance to do what you're asking for.
Look for TextWedge at
http://www.homestead.com/adriancarter/Index.html
Let me know if you want to pursue this.

HTH,
Adrian Carter
 
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