Excel 2016 paste in one column (1 Viewer)

Dick7Access · Jun 23, 2017

For years and months I have been copying my monthly report that comes in via email in a RTF MS Word format. I then paste it into a Excel sheet so that I can sort it by alphabetical. It would put each name, date, amount in its own column.
All of a sudden it puts each record in the first column. Anybody have any idea what is happening?
BTW: I have a new computer, but it does the same on my old computer.

ashleedawg · Jun 28, 2017

Excel is trying to "remember" your last Text to Columns setting, and switching computers or filenames might make it forget.

The Word Rich Text file is probably Tab Delimited (tab's separating each column). Quick fix:

Paste in your data (so it's all in one column like you described)
Go to the Data menu and choose Text to Columns
Click Next -> Next -> Finish

Is your data split into columns properly now? If so, Excel should remember this choice, so next time you just need to paste it in.

If it's still all one column then it is delimited a different way. Is there a comma (or different symbol) between each column? If so, you can go back to Text to Columns and on 'Step 2', choose the correct symbol. Again, it should remember your choice next time.

If it's not a symbol then the data is probably has "Fixed Width" columns. Choose that from "Step 1" and then "Step 2" allows you to click on your data to specify where the columns begin.

Dick7Access · Jun 28, 2017

ashleedawg said:
Excel is trying to "remember" your last Text to Columns setting, and switching computers or filenames might make it forget.

The Word Rich Text file is probably Tab Delimited (tab's separating each column). Quick fix:

Paste in your data (so it's all in one column like you described)

Go to the Data menu and choose Text to Columns

Click Next -> Next -> Finish

Is your data split into columns properly now? If so, Excel should remember this choice, so next time you just need to paste it in.

If it's still all one column then it is delimited a different way. Is there a comma (or different symbol) between each column? If so, you can go back to Text to Columns and on 'Step 2', choose the correct symbol. Again, it should remember your choice next time.

If it's not a symbol then the data is probably has "Fixed Width" columns. Choose that from "Step 1" and then "Step 2" allows you to click on your data to specify where the columns begin.

Thank You so very much. That fixed it.

Excel 2016 paste in one column (1 Viewer)

Dick7Access

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ashleedawg

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