Selecting a particular column

[Vishwas Upadhyaya]

Hi all,

I have a word file in which the data have been entered in two columns
without the table being created. A tab seperates the two columns in
every line of the data as shown below:

4.223391 244.140625
4.149764 488.281250
4.204984 488.281250
4.315426 244.140625
4.333833 244.140625

This data table actually has more than few thousands of lines. I need
to select only the first column and copy it to another notepad file or
excel or another word file. Can anybody help me doing this? I dont
care if the second column gets deleted completly.

Regards,
Vishwas

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

For that many lines, Alt+Drag to column select would be chancy. I'd replace
each space with a tab character, then convert the text to a table,
separating at tabs. Delete the second column, convert the first back to
text, and then select.

There are intermediate possibilities: you could skip the replace and just
create the table, directly, separating at spaces; you could select the first
column and paste into another document, then convert to text and copy/paste
into Notepad or whatever. If you're pasting into Excel, you can just select
the first column of the table and copy/paste directly (Excel understands
tables). But that's the general approach.

 

[Doug Robbins - Word MVP]

Use Ctrl+A then Ctrl+C, then go to Excel and with a single cell selected use
Ctrl+V. You will then have the numbers in two columns in Excel and you can
then just delete the second column.

--
Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Much faster than my way!

 

[Vishwas Upadhyaya]

Use Ctrl+A then Ctrl+C, then go to Excel and with a single cell selected use
Ctrl+V.  You will then have the numbers in two columns in Excel and you can
then just delete the second column.

--
Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP










- Show quoted text -

Using Ctrl+A then Ctrl+C, then go to Excel and with a single cell
selected use
Ctrl+V. doesnt help at all. I bet you didnt try this procedure with
the sample data I have produced here. If you copy paste the data into
the excel cell, all the data gets copied into the single cell that you
have chosen; although it appears as if its split.

regards,
Vishwas

 

[Vishwas Upadhyaya]

For that many lines, Alt+Drag to column select would be chancy. I'd replace
each space with a tab character, then convert the text to a table,
separating at tabs. Delete the second column, convert the first back to
text, and then select.

There are intermediate possibilities: you could skip the replace and just
create the table, directly, separating at spaces; you could select the first
column and paste into another document, then convert to text and copy/paste
into Notepad or whatever. If you're pasting into Excel, you can just select
the first column of the table and copy/paste directly (Excel understands
tables). But that's the general approach.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA










- Show quoted text -

This works!! Although its kind of lengthy it works really well. I
used "convert the text to a table" with seperating character specified
as 'space' typed in "other" category. Thanks a million!!

Regards,
Vishwas

 

[DeanH]

From your inital description you did say that there is a tab between the
columns.
I copied your text and inserted the required Tab between the columns, went
to Excel I actually got the required result by using Paste Special - Text.
Hope this helps
DeanH

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Indeed, he does specify a tab. I missed that. But from the fact that he used
Table | Convert | Text to Table separating at spaces, it would appear that
the intervening character is actually a space (as it appears to be).

 

[PamC via OfficeKB.com]

Even with the data all in one column you could still parse the it into
separate columns. Excel 2007 calls this "text to columns". I've forgotten
what Excel 2003 calls it.

In Excel, select column to be parsed. On the data tab select text to columns.
Click the delimited radio button and on the next screen, choose "space" as
the delimiter. Then click finish.

I don't know which is faster. But both Word and Excel can easily and quickly
do the task.

PamC

From your inital description you did say that there is a tab between the
columns.
I copied your text and inserted the required Tab between the columns, went
to Excel I actually got the required result by using Paste Special - Text.
Hope this helps
DeanH

On May 12, 4:47 am, "Doug Robbins - Word MVP"
<[email protected]> wrote:

[quoted text clipped - 41 lines]

regards,
Vishwas