From notepad to excel

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Can a notepad file be converted to Excel?

The steps to import a TXT or CSV file into Excel are similar for Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2016: Open the Excel spreadsheet where you want to save the data and click the Data tab.Select the TXT or CSV file you want to convert and click Import. Select “Delimited”.

How do I convert notepad to Xlsx?

How to convert TXT to XLSX

1. Upload txt-file(s) Select files from Computer, Google Drive, Dropbox, URL or by dragging it on the page.
2. Choose “to xlsx” Choose xlsx or any other format you need as a result (more than 200 formats supported)
3. Download your xlsx.

How do you convert Notes in Excel?

Turn your notes into Excel spreadsheets

1. Open Excel on your Android or iPhone and create a new spreadsheet.
2. Tap the Insert data from picture button at the bottom of the spreadsheet (3×3 grid with a camera icon)
3. Resize/move the red box as needed and tap the Capture button.

How do I paste a notepad column into Excel?

Go to Notepad and tap Cltr+A (aka Select All) then Ctrl+C (aka Copy). Back at Excel, right-click the destination cell and choose Paste, Keep Text only icon.

How do I convert notepad to word?

Go to “File->Save As.” Under “Save as type,” choose “Word Document (. doc).” Choose a file name and folder for your new document, then click “Save.”

How do I convert a TXT file to Excel?

Steps to Convert a Text File to CSV using Python

1. Step 1: Install the Pandas package. If you haven’t already done so, install the Pandas package.
2. Step 2: Capture the path where your text file is stored.
3. Step 3: Specify the path where the new CSV file will be saved.
4. Step 4: Convert the text file to CSV using Python.

How do I convert text to columns in Excel?

Open Excel and start a new Blank workbook.

1. Add entries to the first column and select them all.
2. Choose the Data tab atop the ribbon.
3. Select Text to Columns.
4. Ensure Delimited is selected and click Next.
5. Clear each box in the Delimiters section and instead choose Comma and Space.
6. Click Finish.

How do I convert XML to Excel?

Import XML File into Excel using the web URL

1. Open the Excel file where you want to import the data.
2. Click the Data tab.
3. In the Get & Transform group, click on the ‘Get Data’ option.
4. Go to the ‘From Other Sources’ option.
5. Click on ‘From Web’
6. In the ‘From Web’ dialog box, copy and paste the URL that has the XML data.
7. Click OK.

How do I open a Notepad file in Excel?

U can Open text file by using following steps:

1. Right Click on Notepad.
2. Choose Default programs.
3. Uncheck Always use the selected program to open this kind of file.
4. Click on Browse.
5. Select path depent on OS, for Win7 : C:Program Files (x86)Microsoft OfficeOffice14.
6. Select Excel.
7. Click on Open.

How do I add text to an Excel document?

Usually what I do is open the first text file up in Excel using the “Open With” right-click option, then “Save As” a CSV with a new name, then individually open each file and copy/paste the rows with content one after another into the first one.

How do I automatically convert CSV file to Excel?

Power Automate allows you to open comma-delimited and tab-delimited CSV files directly through the Launch Excel action. To convert a CSV file of this type to XLSX, open the file and then save it as a new Excel workbook using the Save document as option in the Close Excel action.

How do I convert notepad to Wordpad?

To change into Word format, you can open the existing text file in either Wordpad or Word program by Pressing CTRL+O and browsing to the folder where text file is. Select it and open it. After opening, Save As *. docx to convert into Word format.

How do I copy and paste from Notepad to word?

Copy and paste the text from Notepad into Word.
Further Explanation:

1. Open Word and the Notepad screen.
2. Highlight the text and hit the CTRL button and the C button at the same time.
3. Open the Word window and click on the blank document.
4. Hit the CTRL button and the V button at the same time.

How do I open a .TXT file in word?

Open the Microsoft Word program. In the menu at the top, click the File menu and select the Open option. In the Open window, find and select the file you want to open in Microsoft Word. You may need to click the drop-down list next to the File name text field to change the file type, and then select open.

How do I convert a TXT file?

How to Convert a Text File to a DAT File

1. Launch the program called Notepad by double-clicking on the Notepad icon or by finding it in your list of programs.
2. Click on “File,” then choose “Open.” Open the file that you want to convert to a data file.
3. Make any changes you want to make to the file, then choose “Save As…”

How do I save a .TXT file as a CSV?

Save a workbook to text format (. txt or . csv)

1. Open the workbook you want to save.
2. Click File > Save As.
3. Pick the place where you want to save the workbook.
4. In the Save As dialog box, navigate to the location you want.
5. Click the arrow in the Save as type box and pick the type of text or CSV file format you want.

How do I convert a TXT file to CSV?

How to convert TXT to CSV

1. Upload txt-file(s) Select files from Computer, Google Drive, Dropbox, URL or by dragging it on the page.
2. Choose “to csv” Choose csv or any other format you need as a result (more than 200 formats supported)
3. Download your csv.

How do I open a TXT file in Jupyter notebook?

10 Answers. you can open it using the command ipython notebook filename. ipynb from the directory it is downloaded on to. If you are on a newer machine, open the file as jupyter notebook filename.

How do I open XML as default in Excel?

Open XML with Excel 2016by default

1. right click on the xml file > properties.
2. click ‘change’.
3. click on ‘more apps/ more options’ > look for another app on this pc.
4. in the window that opens, browse [excel].

How do I open an XML file in Excel?

With Excel

1. Open MS-Excel and click File->Open.
2. Browse to the location that has the XML file and click Open to open the file.
3. A pop up with 3 options is displayed. Select As an XML table radio button.
4. This opens and displays the XML file as an Excel table.

Different applications generate data in different forms.

A SaaS application might generate a report in the form of a PDF, while another application might generate data in the form of a TXT or CSV file.

The challenge lies in consolidating the data into a single application that can work with all the data to produce the required results.

Microsoft Excel is one application that is frequently used for this, owing to its versatility in importing data from files with a wide variety of extensions.  

For example, if you have a list of items saved in a Text file (or in Notepad), Excel allows you to import this list so that you can process it further.

In this tutorial we will show you two ways to convert a text file to Excel:

• By using the Text Import Wizard
• By opening the file directly in Excel

What is a Text File?

A Text file is one that contains text with no special formatting (as in bold, italic, images, etc.).

These files are identified with the ‘.txt’ extension and can be opened in any text editor, like Notepad or word processor, like Microsoft Word.

But in many cases, you can have data in a text file that you need to open in Excel and analyze there.

Thankfully, you can easily open text files in Microsoft Excel and then further work on it.

Let’s see how to do that!

Let us look at two ways in which we can convert a Text file (.txt) to Excel.

Method 1: Using the Text Import Wizard to Convert a Text File to Excel

If you have a spreadsheet open in Excel and want to import the contents of a Text file at a specific area of your spreadsheet, the Text Import Wizard might be the best way to go.

This wizard scans your text file and ensures that the data in the file is imported the way you want.

To use the Text Import Wizard, select the Data tab, followed by ‘From Text’ (which you will find under the ‘Get External Data’ group. 

After this, select the text file that you want to import.

Your Text Import Wizard should now open automatically. 

The Text Import Wizard guides you in providing the best settings to import your text file data through 3 steps:

Step 1 of 3

In this step you can provide the settings for the following:

• Original Data Type: Here you can choose how you want your data to be separated into columns. You have two options:
  • Delimited: Select this if your text file data is separated by tabs, colons, semicolons or other characters.
  • Fixed width: Select this if all items in each column of your data are the same width.
• Start import at row: Type or select the first row of your data from where you want to start importing.
• File origin: Select the character set that your text file uses, for example 437 (for the OEM United States character set). Usually, it’s fine to leave this at the default setting.
• My data has headers: Keep this field checked if your Text file’s dataset contains headers.

Step 2 of 3

If you had selected the ‘Delimited’ radio button in Step 1, then this step lets you specify the delimiters that your data contains (for example tabs, commas, semicolons, etc.) You can also specify if you want consecutive delimiters to be counted as one. 

Moreover, if your text values are enclosed in a special set of characters (for example in single or double quotes), then you can specify the character in this step.

These characters are known as ‘Text qualifiers’ and help specify if you want a set of values to be imported as one.

For example, “Scott, Steve” is imported as a single value, even though the words are separated by a comma delimiter.

At the bottom of the screen, you can see a preview of how your data will get affected in the spreadsheet after conversion.

If you had selected the ‘Fixed Width’ radio button in Step 1, on the other hand, then Step 2 lets you specify widths for each column.

You can introduce a new column break in the preview window by simply clicking at the appropriate point on the scale.

A line with an arrow should appear to represent the column break.

Place line breaks wherever you need to in the preview window.

If you want to move a line break, simply drag it across. If you want to remove a line, simply double-click on it.

Step 3 of 3

This lets you specify the data format for each column.

You can specify if you want a column to remain in the default format set by the Text Import Wizard or if you want to set the format to be General, Text, or Date. 

Simply select a column from the preview window and select the format you want.

If you want to remove a selected column, select the last radio button option (which says ‘Do not import column‘).

The Advanced button in this step opens the Advanced Text Import Settings dialog box. 

This dialog box lets you specify advanced formatting options.

For example, you can use the Advanced Text Import Settings to specify what decimal or thousands separators have been used in the text file, so that they can be made to match your computer’s regional settings.

Once you’re done providing all the settings for your imported text data, click on the Finish button.

This will open the Import Data dialog box.

In this box, you can select where you want your text file’s data imported.

If you want to import it into the existing worksheet, you can select or type in a reference to the cell where you want Excel to start displaying the imported data.

If you want to open it in a new worksheet, however, then select the radio button next to ‘New Worksheet’.

Click OK.

Your text file should now get imported to your selected location in Excel, with the format settings that you had specified in the Text Import Wizard.

Also read: How to Open XML Files in Excel?

Method 2: Opening a Text File Directly in Excel

You can also choose to simply open the text file directly in Excel.

While opening, Excel recognizes a text file and automatically converts it into a format that can be displayed in a spreadsheet. 

All you need to do is click on the File tab, select Open and then browse and select the text file that you want to open.

One issue that you are likely to face when trying to open a text file directly in Excel is trying to locate the file in the folder.

This is because Excel’s ‘Open File’ dialog box, by default, filters, and displays only Excel files like those with extensions ‘.xls’, ‘.xlsx’, etc.

It also displays CSV files, if your computer is set up to use Excel as the default application to open CSV files.

So if you don’t see your required text file in the folder when trying to open it in Excel, simply select ‘All Files’ from the ‘File Types’ drop-down, as shown below:

This will display the Text Import Wizard from where you can set up how you want your Text file’s data to be displayed in Excel (as shown in method 1).

You should now see your text file converted and displayed in Excel.  

Once the file opens, if you still find some of the columns (or individual cells) not converted to your required format, you can convert them manually.

While this method to open the Text file directly in Excel works well, the benefit of using the first method (using Text Import Wizard) allows you to make some adjustments even before getting the data in Excel.

In this tutorial, we showed you two ways to convert and open a Text file in Excel.

A third method could be by using online tools like Online2pdf, but we did not dwell too much on this because Excel’s Text Import Wizard provides much more flexibility, allowing you to adjust your data, and format them exactly how you want them.

We hope this tutorial was helpful for you.

Other Excel tutorials you may also like:

• How to Convert a CSV File to Excel?
• How to Open VCF File in Excel?
• How to Open Excel File [xls, xlsx] Online (for FREE)
• Why does Excel Open on Startup (and How to Stop it)
• How to Make Excel File Read Only
• How to Insert an Excel file into MS Word
• How to Save Selection in Excel as PDF (3 Easy Methods)
• How to Merge Two Excel Files?
• How to Convert PDF to Excel without Software?
• How to Open DAT Files in Excel?

Last Update: Jan 03, 2023

This is a question our experts keep getting from time to time. Now, we have got the complete detailed explanation and answer for everyone, who is interested!

Asked by: Jaida Bogan

Score: 4.6/5
(48 votes)

Steps to convert content from a TXT or CSV file into Excel

How do I copy from Notepad to Excel?

Go to Notepad and tap Cltr+A (aka Select All) then Ctrl+C (aka Copy). Back at Excel, right-click the destination cell and choose Paste, Keep Text only icon.

How do I convert a TXT file to Excel?

Steps to Convert a Text File to CSV using Python

How do I convert a notepad file?

How TO CONVERT NOTEPAD BACK TO DOCUMENT FILES That are legible

How do I read a notepad file?

How to Read from Notepad file

33 related questions found

Different applications generate data in different forms.

One SaaS application can generate a report in PDF format, while another application can generate data in the form of a TXT or CSV file.

The challenge is to consolidate the data into one application that can work with all the data and produce the desired result.

Microsoft Excel is a frequently used application due to its ability to import data from files with different extensions.

For example, if you have a list of items stored in a text file (or in Notepad), Excel allows you to import that list so that you can further process it.

In this tutorial, we’ll show you two ways to convert a text file to Excel:

• By using the Text Import Wizard
• By opening the file directly in Excel

What is a Text File?

A text file because it contains text without any special format (such as bold, italics, images, etc.).

These files are identified by the “.txt” extension and can be accessed using any word processor, such as Notepad, or a word processor, such as Microsoft Word.

But in many cases, you can have the data in a text file that you need to open in Excel and analyze there.

Fortunately, you can easily open text files in Microsoft Excel and then work with them.

We’ll see how you do it!

How to Convert a Text File to Excel?

Let’s look at two ways we can convert a text file (.txt) to Excel.

Method 1: Using the Text Import Wizard to Convert a Text File to Excel

If you have an Excel spreadsheet open and want to import the contents of a text file into a specific area of ​​the spreadsheet, the Import Text Wizard may be the best way.

This wizard scans your text file and ensures that the data in the file is imported as you wish.

To use the Import Text Wizard, select the Data tab and then the “From text” item (found in the “Extract external data” group).

After this, select the text file that you want to import.

The Import Text Wizard should now open automatically.

The Import Text Wizard guides you through the most advanced settings for importing text file data in 3 steps:

Step 1 of 3 –

• Original data type: Here you can choose how you want to divide the data into columns. You have two options:

• Delimited: Select this option if the text file data is separated by tabs, colons, semicolons, or other characters.
• Fixed width: Select this option if all items in each column of your data have the same width.

• Start import at row: Enter or select the first row of data from which you want to start the import.
• File origin: Select the character set used in your text file, such as 437 (for the US OEM character set). Normally, it’s best to leave it at the default settings.
• My data has headers: Hold down this field to verify that the dataset in your text file contains a header.

Step 2 of 3 –

If you selected the “Delimiter” radio button in step 1, you can specify the delimiters available in your data (such as tabs, commas, semicolons, etc.) in this step.

Even if your text values ​​are included in a special character set (such as single or double quotes), you can enter a character in this step.

These characters are known as “text qualifications” and can help determine if you want to import a set of values ​​as one.

For example, “Scott, Steve” is imported as a value, even if the words are separated by a comma.

At the bottom of the screen you will see an example of how the data in the table will be affected after the conversion.

If you selected the ‘Fixed Width’ radio button in step 1, on the other hand, step 2 will allow you to enter the width of each column.

You can enter a new column end by simply clicking on the appropriate point on the scale in the preview window.

There should be a visible line with an arrow representing the break column.

In the preview window, place the line breaks where you need them.

To move the end of a line, just drag it. If you want to delete a row, just double-click on it.

Step 3 of 3 –

Lets you specify the data format for each column.

You can specify whether you want the column to remain in the default format set by the Text Import Wizard, or whether you want to set the format to General, Text, or Date.

Just select a column from the preview window and choose the desired format.

If you want to delete the selected column, select the last option on the radio button (which says “Do not import column”).

The Advanced button in this step opens the Advanced Text Import Settings dialog box.

This will open the Import Data dialog box.

In this field you can select where you want to import the data into a text file.

If you want to import it into the current worksheet, you can select or enter a link to the cell in which Excel should begin displaying the imported data.

To open it in a new sheet, select the radio button next to “New Sheet”.

Click the OK button.

Your text file should now be imported to the location of your choice in Excel using the formatting settings you set in the Text Import Wizard.

How to Subtract in Excel: Formula for Numbers, Percentages, Dates, and Times?

Method 2: Opening a Text File Directly in Excel

You can also choose to simply open the text file directly in Excel.

When opened, Excel recognizes the text file and automatically converts it to a format that can be displayed in a spreadsheet.

All you have to do is click on the File tab, select Open, and then browse to select the text file you want to open.

One problem you may encounter when trying to open a text file directly in Excel is to try to find the file in the folder.

This is because the Open Excel File dialog box displays filters and only Excel files, such as ‘.xls’, ‘.xlsx’, and so on, by default.

It also displays CSV files if your computer is set to use Excel as the default application for opening CSV files.

Therefore, if you can’t find the text file you want in the folder when you try to open it in Excel, just select “All Files” from the “File Types” drop-down list, as shown below:

The Import Text Wizard appears, allowing you to configure how you want the data in the text file to appear in Excel (as described in Method 1).

You should now see your text file converted and displayed in Excel.  

If, after opening the file, you still find some columns (such as individual cells) that have not been converted to the desired format, you can convert them manually.

In this tutorial, we will show you two ways to edit and open a text file in Excel.

The third method may be to use online tools like Online2pdf, but we haven’t talked about that, because the Excel Text Import Wizard offers more flexibility, you can customize your data and format it exactly the way you want.

We hope this guide helps you.

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The Excel Power Query also called the ‘Get & Transform’ feature is an excellent excel tool to extract and import data from various internal or external sources into excel and transform it as per your need. In this tutorial, would learn how to extract, import, and get data from a text file to excel.

This feature is pre-installed in higher excel versions (Excel 2016 and above) but not inbuilt for lower excel versions. However, there is an external power query add-in for Excel 2010 and 2013. To get the power query feature for these versions, follow our tutorial on – Install Power Query in Excel 2010 [Step by Step Guide]. To name a few, the power query feature allows you to extract data from another excel workbook or files, from websites, or from JSON file format, etc.

What is Special About Power Query?

The reason why the power query feature has become so popular amongst excel users is that this feature instantly records and stores (in sequence) everything that you perform on the imported external data in the form of connections. Now, when the source text file updates or changes, you simply have to refresh the connections. On refresh, all the recorded steps are performed exactly in sequence source external file and you finally have updated data in to excel.

Confused ? No need to worry. In the upcoming section of this blog, we would learn to import and also perform some transformation steps on the data, and see what happens on data update.

Sample Data – Convert Text File To Excel

Suppose, I have 100’s of rows of purchase or sales data in a notepad file as shown in the image below. Now, I want to convert this notepad data into an Excel table, such that when I update this text file data in the future, the excel table data also gets updated.

You can easily achieve this using the powerful Power Query tool of Excel.

Use ‘Download’ button below to get the above sample text file(s) and practice as you go ahead.

Steps to Import Data from Text File to Excel | Power Query

Below step by step procedure would help you to convert a notepad file to excel:

• Open a new workbook and go to Data tab > Get & Transform Data group > Get Data > From File > From Text/CSV, as shown below:

I use the “Excel Office 365” version for my daily excel tasks. If you are using other excel versions, the screen look may be different.

• In the ‘Import Data‘ dialog box that appears, navigate and select the text file.

• As a result, a new window would pop out on your screen with the following details:
  • The title of this window is the name of the imported text file.
  • It detects the file origin and the text delimiter based on the file and the data in it.
  • It shows the preview of the text file data and also detects and converts the first row as the data header row.

• To directly load the text file to excel, simply click on the ‘Load’ button on the bottom right corner of this window.

• As a result, you would get all the rows of data from the text file data to excel worksheet. In the present case, there were 300 rows of data in the text file, all loaded to excel now.

• Let us now make some changes in the source text file. I have, for demonstration purposes, added some new data rows to the text file.

• Now, use the right mouse click on the table and ‘Refresh‘ option (as highlighted below).

• As a result, excel would rerun all the power query steps and extracts the updated data from the source text file. Excel has now updated 306 rows of data.

Now, let us see what did the excel do in background !!

Power Query Editor – What Did Happen in Background?

The power query feature is no different than an excel macro recorder. It records all the transformation steps that you perform and saves it in form of a query.

Now, just like macro, you can rerun the steps to get the updated source data to excel.

While extracting the text file to excel using power query, excel performed and stored three default power query steps in the background-

1. Extracting data from the source text file
2. Promoting the first row from the original data as table headers
3. Changing the ‘Data Types‘ of the table columns

To check these steps, click anywhere on the data table, and go to Query tab > Edit group > Edit option.

Or you can even double click the query in the ‘Queries & Connections’ pane, as shown below:

This would open the ‘Power Query Editor‘ window (as shown in the image below). On the right, under the ‘Query Settings‘ pane, you can see the power query name as ‘Purchase Details – November 2020‘ and the default ‘Applied Steps’.

The ‘Power Query Editor’ window has many more data transformation options on its ribbon tabs. As you perform these additional transformation steps, excel records all the steps in sequence and places them in the ‘Applied Steps‘ section (Query Settings pane) one below the other.

Now, when the data in the source files changes, you need to only refresh the power query. On refresh, it reruns all the ‘Applied Steps’ in sequence and gives the output.

Lets Take An Example To Understand Power Query Transformation

Let us now see how the power query behaves when we add more steps to it. Lets perform the following additional transformation:

1. Rename the Power Query as ‘Data Transformation’
2. Create a duplicate column of the column ‘Purchase Value’
3. Rename this new column as ‘Net Value’

To rename the power query, simply go to the ‘Power Query Editor’ window. In the ‘Query Settings’ pane to the right, change the default power query name and press Enter to continue.

To create a duplicate of the column, right-click on the ‘Purchase Value’ column header and select the option ‘Duplicate Column’. This would instantly create a copy of the column with the name ‘Purchase Value – Copy’.

Now, just check the ‘Applied Steps’ section. You would notice that a new step gets added with the name ‘Duplicated Column’ as shown in the image below:

To rename this new column, double click on the new column header, type a nice name and then press Enter.

Check the ‘Applied Steps’ section and you would notice a new step added at the end – ‘Renamed Column’.

Finally load the transformed power query data to excel, using the path – ‘Home’ tab > ‘Close & Load’ option (in Power Query Editor window).

Now, when the source text file gets updated with new rows of data, you need to simply refresh your power query. On refresh, it would perform the ‘Applied Steps’ in the same sequence (from top to down). Meaning, it would extract data from the source > promote its headers > change header data types > create a duplicate of column > And finally, rename the duplicate column.

With this, we have completed the tutorial on ‘How to Import Data from Text File or Notepad to Excel’. Share your thoughts on this tutorial in the comment section below.