Database export, all data in one cell

B

Bob

I'm a member of an organization. For reasons we don't
need to go into, I needed a list of our members. This is
currently maintained in a database, and the secretary
said she'd send it to me in Excel. Fine, I said.

So I get it, and each members information is all in one
cell: first name, last name, title, address, city, state,
all of it.

I need to sort by last name, but it is embedded in the
middle of each cell.

Any way out of this fix, short of manual cut and paste?
Hate to do that with over 3,000 members.

Thanks,
Bob
 
F

Frank Kabel

Hi
if these values are separated by a delimiter first use 'Data - Text to
columns' to convert your data to multiple columns. After this you can
sort with the respective column
 
G

Guest

The error happened because of the way she exported it from
MS Access. There are various options to export.
Sometimes I like to export from Access to a .TXT file and
then into Excel to sort of "wash" the data.


Try that next time she takes a dump.
 
B

BGN

You can do it by

1. highlight the column with data
2. go to data on the menu
3. choose text to columns
4. option delimited
5. choose option "space"
and then follow through the steps

Make sure the columns next to the data do not have any data in them, s
that Excel can paste the data into those columns.

After you get all the data into different columns, you can sort them b
last name.

Hope this works for you
 
G

Gerrit-Jan Linker

Just wanted to let you know that I have written a utility to do this
sort of work: SQL*XL.

It is an end user query tool that you can use in Excel. It is pretty
easy to use and if required you can automate things as I have built in
Excel macro recording support.

What I would suggest in your case is to connect using SQL*XL to your
database. Then use SQL to query your data from the database. You
receive it neatly in Excel ready for use. If you require it ordered in
some way you can choose to code an order by clause in the SQL or by
ordering the data when it has arrived in Excel.

Have a look at it. Perhaps it is something for you:
www.oraxcel.com

Best regards, Gerrit-Jan Linker
Linker IT Consulting Limited
www.oraxcel.com
Author of SQL*XL
 
Top