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How to open a text file in Excel?


Excel can read and open text files.

Excel, Word or any text editing software can read, open any text file.

When opening the file on Excel, formatting will be an issue.

If text file values or data need to arrange by columns or by rows, then it could be daunting to import the file to Excel.

But if the text file is properly formatted, like values are separated by tab, comma or other symbols to segregate values or basically any delimiter characters Excel will open the text file as CSV or comma separated values without any issue.

If the text file exported from a program that has delimiters or any text file separated by delimiters then importing process to Excel will be easier.

Values will be separated based on the delimiters detected on the file.

If the file delimiter is a "tab" character or tab-delimited text file, values or data will be separated based on "tab" spacing.

Example:
"tab" refers to the actual tab, which correspond to number of spaces.
Word "tab"  is just used for illustration purposes.

Sample data:
FirstValue01  "tab" SecondValue02 "tab" ThirdValue03"

When the importing process is done, output format will be like this:

Column 1 will have the value of "FirstValue01"
Column 2 will have the value of "SecondValue02"
Column 3 will have the value of "ThirdValue03"


To select or import text files to "Excel" click on "File".

Click "Open", on the open window; click on drop down menu. Select "All files", which can be found on bottom right or see image below:


After selecting the text file, follow on-screen instructions on how to import the text file as CSV in Excel.

If the file delimiter is a tab character, Excel will automatically separate the data by column based on "Tab" character spacing.

If the delimiter is not “tab” spacing, the delimiter has to be specified during the import process.

Below are the screen shots on how importing process is done:

Step1: Specify whether file is delimited or not.



Step2: Specify the delimiter used on the file.





Step3: Preview on how the output looks like.

 
Step4: Final output on Excel, values are separated by columns automatically.





Cheers!! Hope it helps!!!




















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