Reading files in vba excel

You can VBA Read file binary or text data using a couple of different approaches in Excel. VBA provides you a set of native statements like Open to open and ready files. However in this article aside from showing you these native approaches to reading files using Excel Macros you can read CSV files and other structured data schemas using Jet.OLEDB driver, Microsoft Queries or also the FileSystemObject.

Text/binary files are common ways of storing data as opposed to databases or regular Excel files. Looking at various resources I missed a single resource which would demonstrate the various methods for PROPERLY reading files in VBA.

It is important to remember that you shouldn’t read all files using the same approach. Be aware of the structure of the file. If it is a structured CSV use the ADODB connection, if you need to read only a couple of rows read the file row by row or by chunks, else read the whole file. If you want performance – always select the right approach.

Reading text files in VBA

VBA Read text files (line by line)

To read an entire text file line by line use the code below.

Dim fileName As String, textData As String, textRow As String, fileNo As Integer
fileName = "C:text.txt"
fileNo = FreeFile 'Get first free file number  
    
Open fileName For Input As #fileNo
Do While Not EOF(fileNo)
   Line Input #fileNo, textRow
   textData = textData & textRow
Loop
Close #fileNo

VBA Read text files (read whole file)

To read an entire text file in one go (not line by line) use the code below.a

Dim fileName As String, textData As String, fileNo As Integer
fileName = "C:text.txt"
fileNo = FreeFile 'Get first free file number   
 
Open fileName For Input As #fileNo
textData = Input$(LOF(fileNo), fileNo)
Close #fileNo

VBA Read specific number of lines from a text file

In cases when you want to read specific lines from a text file you can adapt the line by line read code as below. It allows you to read a certain number of lines (noLines) from a text file from a specific start line number (sLine). If you set noLines to 0 it will read all lines till end of the file.

Dim fileName As String, textData As String, textRow As String, fileNo As Integer
Dim lineCounter as Long, sLine as Long, noLines as Long

fileName = "C:text.txt"

sLine = 20 'number of the first line you want to read
noLines = 100 'number of lines you want to read

fileNo = FreeFile 
Open fileName For Input As #fileNo
Do While Not EOF(fileNo)
  Line Input #fileNo, textRow
  If lineCount >= sLine and ((noLines > 0 and lineCount < noLines + sLine) or noLines = 0) then
    textData = textData &amp; textRow
  End If
  lineCount = lineCount + 1   
Loop
Close #fileNo

Reading CSV files in VBA

Reading CSV files (read whole file and process each row)

Reading a text file line by line into a string:

'Assuming file looks like this. File path: C:test.csv
'"Col1", "Col2", "Col3"
'1     , 2     , 3

directory = "C:"
fileName = "test.csv" 'Assuming test.csv is in C: directory
Set rs = CreateObject("ADODB.Recordset")
strcon = "Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0;Data Source=" & directory & ";" _
& "Extended Properties=""text;HDR=Yes;FMT=Delimited"";"
strSQL = "SELECT * FROM " & fileName 
rs.Open strSQL, strcon, 3, 3
rs.MoveFirst
Do
   col1 = rs("Col1")
   col2 = rs("Col2")
   col3 = rs("Col3")
   rs.MoveNext
Loop Until rs.EOF

Reading CSV files (whole file to Worksheet)

Read whole file to an Excel Worksheet:

Dim ws as Worksheet, destRng as Range, fileName as String
fileName = "C:text.txt"
Set destRng = Range("A1")
Set ws = ActiveSheet
With ws.QueryTables.Add(Connection:= "TEXT;" & fileName & "", Destination:=destRng)
    .FieldNames = True
    .RowNumbers = False
    .FillAdjacentFormulas = False
    .PreserveFormatting = True
    .RefreshOnFileOpen = False
    .RefreshStyle = xlInsertDeleteCells
    .SaveData = True
    .AdjustColumnWidth = True
    .RefreshPeriod = 0
    .TextFilePromptOnRefresh = False
    .TextFilePlatform = 852
    .TextFileStartRow = 1
    .TextFileParseType = xlDelimited
    .TextFileTextQualifier = xlTextQualifierDoubleQuote
    'Select your delimiter - selected below for Comma
    .TextFileConsecutiveDelimiter = False
    .TextFileTabDelimiter = False
    .TextFileSemicolonDelimiter = False
    .TextFileCommaDelimiter = True
    .TextFileSpaceDelimiter = False
    .TextFileTrailingMinusNumbers = True
    'This will refresh the query
End With

To refresh the CSV upload (in case the CSV was updated) simply run:

  
ws.QueryTables.Refresh BackgroundQuery:=False

Reading binary files in VBA

Dim fileName As String, fileNo As Integer, intVar As Integer
fileName = "C:text.bin"
fileNo = FreeFile

Open fileName For Binary Lock Read As #fileNo
Get #fileNo, , intVar
Close #fileNo

With Binary files often you will be using objects which are not of fixed byte length like Integers. For example you would want to read Strings from binary files together with other data types. In such cases use the Type object data type when writing to a file. Learn more here.
Below a simple example of reading a file to which a Type data type was saved to, including an Integer and String.

Type TestType
    intVar As Integer
    strVar As String
End Type

Sub ReadBinary()
    Dim fileName As String, fileNo As Integer, testVar As TestType
    fileName = "C:test.bin"

    fileNo = FreeFile
    Open fileName For Binary Lock Read As #fileNo
    Get #fileNo, , testVar
    Debug.Print testVar.intVar 'Print the Integer
    Debug.Print testVar.strVar 'Print the String
    Close #fileNo
End Sub

Reading XML files in VBA

XML files are basically text files which follow the XML taxonomy. You can try to read and process XML files similarly as text files shown above. However, given you will probably want to extract specific XML tag or attribute information I suggest reading my dedicated article below.

Functions needed to read files in VBA

Above functions allow native upload of file data. However for more complicated scenario you will probably go for the FileSystemObject.

VBA Read File Summary

Reading files in VBA is not hard and requires just a few lines of code usually. It is, however, important to use the appropriate approach to read a file in VBA. Not all files need to be read line-by-line which is usually inefficient. Equally so you need not always read the entire file if you just need the first few / last rows. Working with XML files is also not a challenge if you read through my post on how to work with XML files.

Want to Write to files instead?

If you are looking to write to files instead using VBA, read my article on how to write to files using VBA.

VBA Program to read a Text file line by line (Sales Data) and places on a worksheet. 

Sales Data in Text File: 5 Fields [ Product, Qtr 1, Qtr 2, Qtr 3 and Qtr 4 ] and 25 Records (Incl. header)

VBA code will read a text file and places on worksheet cells as below

VBA Code:

• Declaring variables:

    'Variable declarations
    Dim line As String, Filename As String, i As Integer, valuesArr() As String

• Initialize “Filename” variable with full path and filename

    'Text file fullPath
    Filename = "D:ExcelReadTextFilesales.txt" 'update your full file path
    i = 1

• Open input file to read text 

    'Open file
    Open Filename For Input As #2

• Read input file line by line

    'Read line by line - text file
    While Not EOF(2)
        Line Input #2, line

• Split by comma and store it in valueArr().  In our example, each line has 5 values concatenated with comma.

        'split the line by comma separated, assigned in an array
        valuesArr() = Split(line, ",")

• Add text to respective cells from valuesArr().  Read each item in an array by it’s index value

        Cells(i, "A").Value = valuesArr(0)
        Cells(i, "B").Value = valuesArr(1)
        Cells(i, "C").Value = valuesArr(2)
        Cells(i, "D").Value = valuesArr(3)
        Cells(i, "E").Value = valuesArr(4)

• Increment counter i, to move next line.

        i = i + 1

• Close while loop

    Wend

• Close file

'Close file
Close #2

Approach:

Step 1: Open Excel.

Step 2: Add a shape (Read Text File) to your worksheet  .

Step 3: Right-click on “Read Text file” and “Assign Macro..”

Step 4: Select ReadTextFileLineByLine Macro

Step 5: Save your excel file as “Excel Macro-Enabled Workbook”  *.xlsm

Step 6: Click “Read Text file” 

Step 7: Adjust column width in your excel file.

In this article I will explain how you can read data from a text file. You can download the workbook and code for this article here.

Jump To:

• Example 1, Opening a Text File and Reading the First Line
• Example 2, Closing the Text File After Using it
• Example 3, Reading All Lines of Text From a Text File
• Example 4, Selecting Text File With Dialog
• Example 5, Checking for Errors When Opening the Text File

–

Example 1, Opening a Text File and Reading the First Line:

In this example a text file with the path “D:test.txt” will be openend and the first line will be displayed in a message box. The text file has the following data in it:

This can be achieved by the code below:

Sub Example1()
Dim FilePath As String
Dim strFirstLine As String

FilePath = "D:test.txt"
Open FilePath For Input As #1
Line Input #1, strFirstLine
MsgBox (strFirstLine)
End Sub


Result:

The first line of code sets the value of FilePath to the full path of the text file:

FilePath = "D:test.txt"


The line below opens the file at the specified location and assigns the index “1” to it:

Open FilePath For Input As #1


FilePath:

The full path of the text file to to open

Input:

States that we are only going to use this text file for reading data.

1:

This would be the reference to the file we have opened. Instead of “1” we could have used any number between 1 and 511. Usually the number #1 is always used unless if we are attempting to read from multiple files at the same time.

The line below reads the first line of data from the file with the index “1” and assigns the value to the variable strFirstLine:

Line Input #1, strFirstLine


1:

The index of the file to read the first line from

strFirstLine:

The variable to assign the data from the first line of the text file to.

–

Example 2, Closing the Text File After Using It:

The problem with Example 1 was that it didn’t close the file after using it. If you try to run the code in example 1 a second time you will get the following error:

In order to prevent this error you would need to close the file after using it. This can be done by adding the following line to the code in Example 1:

Close #1


Close #1 closes the file with the “1′ index. Had we used another number while opening the file the same number should be used when closing the file:

Sub Example2()
Dim FilePath As String
Dim strFirstLine As String
FilePath = "D:test.txt"
Open FilePath For Input As #1
Line Input #1, strFirstLine
MsgBox (strFirstLine)
Close #1
End Sub


Instead of using the index “1” we could have used the index “2”:

Sub Example3()
Dim FilePath As String
Dim strFirstLine As String
FilePath = "D:test.txt"
Open FilePath For Input As #2
Line Input #2, strFirstLine
MsgBox (strFirstLine)
Close #2
End Sub


–

Example 3, Reading All Lines of Data in a Text File:

The following code opens the text file located at the path “D:test2.txt” and prints every line in a separate cell. The file test2.txt contains the following data:

The following code loops through all the lines in the text file and prints them in column A:

Sub Example4()
Dim FilePath As String
Dim strLine As String
Dim i As Integer

FilePath = "D:test2.txt"
Open FilePath For Input As #1
i = 1
While EOF(1) = False
    'read the next line of data in the text file
    Line Input #1, strLine
    'print the data in the current row
    Cells(i, 1) = strLine
    'increment the row counter
    i = i + 1
Wend
Close #1
End Sub


Result:

–

Example 4, Opening a Text File With a Dialog:

In the example below the text file is selected using an open file dialog. All the lines of data from the text file are read and printed in column A. For more information about the open file dialog please see Excel VBA Open File Dialog:

Sub Example5()

Dim strLine As String
Dim i As Integer
Dim intResult As Integer
Dim strPath As String

Application.FileDialog(msoFileDialogOpen).AllowMultiSelect = False
intResult = Application.FileDialog(msoFileDialogOpen).Show
If intResult <> 0 Then
    strPath = Application.FileDialog(msoFileDialogOpen).SelectedItems(1)
Open strPath For Input As #1
    i = 1
    While EOF(1) = False
        'read the next line of data in the text file
        Line Input #1, strLine
        'print the data in the current row
        Cells(i, 1) = strLine
        'increment the row counter
        i = i + 1
    Wend
End If
Close #1
End Sub


The file chosen had the following data in it:

Result:

–

Example 5, Checking for Errors When Opening the Text File:

When opening a text file several things could go wrong which could cause the program to crash. It’s always a good idea to add an exception handler to handle such cases. For more information on this issue please see VBA, Check if Text File is Open. The code below asks the user to select a file to open. If the file is opened successfully  all the data in the text file printed in column A. If there is an error while opening the file, a message box is displayed:

Sub Example6()
Dim strLine As String
Dim i As Integer
Dim intResult As Integer
Dim strPath As String

Application.FileDialog(msoFileDialogOpen).AllowMultiSelect = False
intResult = Application.FileDialog(msoFileDialogOpen).Show
If intResult <> 0 Then
    strPath = Application.FileDialog(msoFileDialogOpen).SelectedItems(1)
    On Error GoTo lblError:
    Open strPath For Input As #1
    i = 1
    While EOF(1) = False
        'read the next line of data in the text file
        Line Input #1, strLine
        'print the data in the current row
        Cells(i, 1) = strLine
        'increment the row counter
        i = i + 1
    Wend
End If
Close #1
Exit Sub

lblError:
MsgBox ("There was an error opening the file. Implement the necessary actions")
Err.Clear
Close #1
End Sub


You can download the workbook and code for this article here.

See also:

• VBA Excel Open File Dialog
• VBA, Modify Existing Text File
• VBA Excel, Writing to a Text File
• VBA, Check if Text File is Open
• Find and List All Files and Folders in a Directory

If you need assistance with your code, or you are looking for a VBA programmer to hire feel free to contact me. Also please visit my website  www.software-solutions-online.com

Below we will look at a program in Excel VBA that reads data from a text file. This file contains some geographical coordinates we want to import into Excel.

Situation:

1. First, download the text file and add it to «C:test»

Place a command button on your worksheet and add the following code lines:

2. We declare four variables. myFile of type String, text of type String, textline of type String, posLat of type Integer, and posLong of type Integer.

Dim myFile As String, text As String, textline As String, posLat As Integer, posLong As Integer

3. We need to initialize the variable myFile with the full path and the filename.

myFile = «C:testgeographical-coordinates.txt»

or

use the GetOpenFilename method of the Application object to display the standard Open dialog box and select the file (without actually opening the file).

myFile = Application.GetOpenFilename()

Note: the empty part between the brackets means we give Excel VBA nothing as input. Place your cursor on GetOpenFilename in the Visual Basic Editor and click F1 for help on the arguments.

4. Add the following code line:

Open myFile For Input As #1

Note: this statement allows the file to be read. We can refer to the file as #1 during the rest of our code.

5. Add the following code lines:

Do Until EOF(1)
    Line Input #1, textline
    text = text & textline
Loop

Note: until the end of the file (EOF), Excel VBA reads a single line from the file and assigns it to textline. We use the & operator to concatenate (join) all the single lines and store it in the variable text.

6. Close the file.

Close #1

7. Next, we search for the position of the words latitude and longitude in the variable text. We use the Instr function.

posLat = InStr(text, «latitude»)
posLong = InStr(text, «longitude»)

8. We use these positions and the Mid function to extract the coordinates from the variable text and write the coordinates to cell A1 and cell A2.

Range(«A1»).Value = Mid(text, posLat + 10, 5)
Range(«A2»).Value = Mid(text, posLong + 11, 5)

9. Test the program.

Result:

Text files are one of the simplest, lightest file types. This is the reason it is highly used in programming to store a lot of configuration-related data, logs and so many other necessary data which is used by programs more frequently.
If you browse your Program files folder in windows almost every program will have some text files for storing some configurations or logs etc. stored in it.

Did you Know?

XML Files are also text files. The only difference is that XML files are more structured than Text files. This is the reason XMLs are widely used for communication.
In this article I am going to teach you in detail – How to deal with Text Files in Excel VBA. As explained above, Text files are very useful while developing any tool or add-in in Excel where you want to store some configuration data – in order to run your program or add-in. Using Excel file to store such data will make the program very slow.

I don’t need to explain much – about why a Text file would be a better option, rather you will find it by yourself at the end of this article.

So let’s start then in a logical order… Opening a file… reading a file… writing into a file.. etc.

Topics covered in this Article

In this article, the following topics are covered. Click on the below links to directly jump to that section

  1. Excel VBA to Open a Text File

  2. Excel VBA to create a NEW Text File

  3. VBA to write a Text file using Write Statement

  4. VBA to write a Text file using Print Statement

  5. VBA to Append to a Text File

  5. What is FreeFile () function ?

How to read a file, will be covered in the next article.

Excel VBA Code to Open a Text File

Following is the code Syntax to open a Text file:

Open [file Path] For [mode] As [#FileNumber]

With the Above code Syntax, as you can see, there are 3 parameters. [file Path] [mode] and [#FileNumber]

So, lets discuss about these three parameters – who are they and what role do they play in opening the text file:

What is File Name

This is the path of the Text file which is going to be opened.

What is Mode in Open Text File VBA Code

As the name suggests, its the control which you want to specify before opening it. There are mainly 3 types of controls or modes possible – Input, Output and Append.
Lets discuss one by one these 3 modes

Input Mode

This mode is used for READ ONLY control. It means, if you open a Text file in Input mode, then you can not write anything in it. All you can do is – read all the content inside the text file. Therefore you can say.. this a read only mode.

Output Mode

If your text file is open in this mode, then you can write content in it. But what is important here to note is : In this mode, your existing file gets overwritten. This means, if there are content already in there in the text file then it will be replaced by the new data which you are trying to save. Therefore, be careful while choosing the mode of the file while opening it.
Now you must be thinking – Then how to append content in an existing text file without overwriting it. Therefore the next mode – Append Mode.

Append Mode

As the name suggests, this mode allow you to append the new content at the end of the text file. It does not overwrite the existing content in the text file.
So now we have an idea about all these 3 modes. It will be more clear when we use them in the below examples.

Now Let’s learn about our second parameter – #FileNumber

#FileNumber

When Text files are opened then windows recognize them by a unique integer value. Valid range of Integers for this parameter is between 1 to 511.
As I mentioned above, it should be a unique integer, it is challenging for you to give a fixed number here in case you are dealing with multiple text files. To overcome this challenge you can use a function called FreeFile()

What is FreeFile() Function?

FreeFile() function returns a unique integer value which represents the file number of the file you opened. This way always a unique (or a FREE File Number – which is not used already) file-Number is assigned automatically by this function.

Now you know about  – How to open a Text file. Let’s see some examples and learn how to use it.

Sample VBA Code to Open a Text File

Sub OpenTextFile()
Dim sFilePath As String
Dim fileNumber As Integer
' Full path of the textFile which you want
' to open.
sFilePath = "C:UsersVishwaDesktopLEM.txt"

' Assign a unique file numner
fileNumber = FreeFile
' Below statement will open the
' above text file in output mode
Open sFilePath For Output As #fileNumber
End Sub

VBA code to create a new TextFile

If the file name provided in the File Path provided while writing Open statement, like above, does not exists, then Open statement, automatically creates a TextFile with the same name in the same directory.
Thus, using the same Open statement, you can create a new TextFile as well. You don’t have to use a different statement to create a new file.

Here is a sample code

Read the commented lines written inside the code. I have tried explaining them there as well.

Sub createANewtextFile()
Dim sFilePath As String
Dim fileNumber As Integer

' In the above path C:UsersVishwaDesktop - exists
' But on the desktop - LEM.txt file does not exist
sFilePath = "C:UsersVishwaDesktopLEM.txt"

' Assign a unique file numner
fileNumber = FreeFile

' in this case, below statement, will
' create a new file with name LEM.txt
' as soon as below statement gets executed
' And also, it is open to write something
Open sFilePath For Output As #fileNumber

End Sub

Note: Only File Name should not exists in order to create a new file. Directories or folders specified must exists. If not, file Not Found Error will be thrown.[/fusion_text]

VBA Code to Write content in to Text File

[fusion_text]Basically there are two statements using which you can write content in to a text file in excel VBA : Write or Print[/fusion_text][title size=”1″ content_align=”left” style_type=”none” sep_color=”” margin_top=”” margin_bottom=”” class=”” id=””]VBA to write in to Text Files using Write statement[/title][fusion_text]As I mentioned above, one can write in to text files using two statements Write or Print. First lets have a look on – how to write content in to a text file using Write statement.[/fusion_text]
Write #<fileNumber>, InputData 1, InputData 2, ….
[title size=”2″ content_align=”left” style_type=”none” sep_color=”” margin_top=”” margin_bottom=”” class=”” id=””]Where:[/title][fusion_text]

File Number : This is a nemeric value which represents the File. This must be a unique number assigned to each open text files. Text files are identified by these unique numbers assigned to them while opening them. refer the Open File statement to know more about FileNumber

Input Data1, 2, 3, …:
This is the data which you want to write in the Textfile. You can write many different kind of data in each line. Each of these data will be written in textfile in a single line separated by comma.
Important to note:
Based on the type of the data which you put in InputData 1, 2 etc. Write statement does some common changes while putting them in to TextFile.

If the data is Date Type:  Then date value is closed within hash sign. Date – 2010-10-13 will be written in TextFile as #2010-10-13#

String type data:  They are stored in double quotes. For example : Input Data – Vishwamitra Mishra will be stored as “Vishwamitra Mishra”.

Integer, Double, Long etc :  They will be written as they are. There is not formatting done before they are written in text file.

Example:

Let’s take an example. Export the following table in excel to a Text file using Write statement.

From the above excel cells, I will start reading one by one every column values of each row and write them in Text File.

VBA Code – To Write Text File – using Write Statement

Sub WriteTextFileUsingWriteStatement()

Dim sFilePath As String
Dim iRow As Integer

Dim OrderDate As Date
Dim OrderPriority As String
Dim OrderQuantity As Integer
Dim Discount As Double
Dim ShipMode As String
Dim CustomerName As String
Dim ShipDate As Date

iRow = 2
sFilePath = "C:UsersVishwaDesktopLEM.txt"

' unique file number to access the file uniquely
fileNumber = FreeFile

' to check if file name LEM.txt exists
' if not, end the program
If (VBA.Len(VBA.Dir(sFilePath))) = 0 Then MsgBox "File Does not exists": End

' Open the TextFile in Output mode
' in order to write in something
Open sFilePath For Output As #fileNumber

' Loop to read one by one every
' non empty row and write them
' in the text file
Do
With Sheets("Orders")
OrderDate = .Cells(iRow, 1).Value
OrderPriority = .Cells(iRow, 2).Value
OrderQuantity = .Cells(iRow, 3).Value
Discount = .Cells(iRow, 4).Value
ShipMode = .Cells(iRow, 5).Value
CustomerName = .Cells(iRow, 6).Value
ShipDate = .Cells(iRow, 7).Value
End With
' Now write these data in text file in next line
Write #fileNumber, OrderDate, OrderPriority, OrderQuantity, Discount, ShipMode, ShipDate

' go to the next row in Excel sheet
iRow = iRow + 1
Loop Until IsEmpty(Sheets("Orders").Cells(iRow, 1).Value)

' Close the file once all data
' is written in text file
Close #fileNumber
End Sub

Result : after Running the above code

After running the above code, Your text file will look something like this:

Now you can see, as explained above, dates are put under Hash marks (#) and string data is put under double quotes (” “).

Important points to note in above code:

1. I have used Dir$ function to check if TextFile already exists. Why I am thinking it is important to mention is because, if you do not put this check and by mistake your file name is not correct, then Open File statement will create a new TextFile in the same location with your provided name and write the content in that new file.
Note: Open file statement will create a new file only if directory exists. If directory itself does not exists, then Open File statement will through an error – Path Not found.
It will not create a directory in that case.

2. Instead of using a fixed number like #1, #2 etc. for FileNumber, I have used the function FreeFile() which always finds an available fileNumber which can be assigned to a textFile. It is always a good practise to use this function rather using a hardcoded File Number. This becomes very important when your program start dealing with multiple text files.

3. To read every line from Excel and write it in textFile, I have used Do..While loop with Until keyword for condition. You can read more about do.. while loop and Until keyword here.

4. Last but not the least – do not forget the Close the file by using the same fileNumber by using the simple statement Close #FileNumber as you can see in the above code.

How to write TextFile using Print Statement

Syntax remains exactly same as Write statement. Main difference between Write and Print statement is in the formatting of the Output in TextFile. You will see in detail. Let’s start with the Syntax:

Syntax of Print statement:

Print #<FileNumber>, InputData1, InputData2, ….

Where:

File Number : This is a numeric value which represents the File. It is exactly same as explained above in Write Statement.

Input Data 1, 2, 3, …:
This is the data which you want to write in the Textfile. You can write many different kind of data in each line. Each of these data will be written in textfile in a Proper formatting with proper spacing. TextFile which you get from Print statement is well formatted for printing purposes. That means spaces between columns are adjusted based on the values in those columns. You will see in the example below.

Important to note:

Unlike Write statement, this does not change any of the formatting of the data for Date or String type. It just put them as they are.
Values of difference columns are not separated by Comma. Rather they are separated by space(s) depending on how many spaces required to make the textfile in a printable format.

Example: To write Text File using PRINT Statement

Let’s take the same example as above. Now we will export the same table from excel to a Text file using Print statement.

Here is the code

Sub WriteTextFileUsingPrintStatement()

Dim sFilePath As String
Dim iRow As Integer

Dim OrderDate As Date
Dim OrderPriority As String
Dim OrderQuantity As Integer
Dim Discount As Double
Dim ShipMode As String
Dim CustomerName As String
Dim ShipDate As Date

iRow = 2
sFilePath = "C:UsersVishwaDesktopLEM.txt"

' unique file number to access the file uniquely
fileNumber = FreeFile

' to check if file name LEM.txt exists
' if not, end the program
If (VBA.Len(VBA.Dir(sFilePath))) = 0 Then MsgBox "File Does not exists": End

' Open the TextFile in Output mode
' in order to write in something
Open sFilePath For Output As #fileNumber

' Loop to read one by one every
' non empty row and write them
' in the text file
Do
With Sheets("Orders")
OrderDate = .Cells(iRow, 1).Value
OrderPriority = .Cells(iRow, 2).Value
OrderQuantity = .Cells(iRow, 3).Value
Discount = .Cells(iRow, 4).Value
ShipMode = .Cells(iRow, 5).Value
CustomerName = .Cells(iRow, 6).Value
ShipDate = .Cells(iRow, 7).Value
End With
' Now write these data in text file in next line
Print #fileNumber, OrderDate, OrderPriority, OrderQuantity, Discount, ShipMode, ShipDate

' go to the next row in Excel sheet
iRow = iRow + 1
Loop Until IsEmpty(Sheets("Orders").Cells(iRow, 1).Value)

' Close the file once all data
' is written in text file
Close #fileNumber
End Sub

Result : after Running the above code

After running the above code, Your text file will look something like this:

Now you can see, as explained above:

1. None of the data are formatted. They are, in fact, put as they are in Excel cells.
2. Spaces between columns are adjusted based on the data in each columns.

[/fusion_text][fusion_text]In all the above examples of writing to a text box, I have used the File Open mode as Output. This means, every time you run the code, all the content of the text file will be replaced with the new one. Therefore, let’s take an example, of how can we append to the existing content in a text file using write or print statement.

VBA Code to Append to Text File

The whole trick lies in to the mode you open your text file during your VBA program. Why I say that, because you do not need to change anything else in the Write or Print statements in order to append and not to replace. Isn’t it simple? So the complete VBA code remains same as it is there for replacing the whole content – except changing the open mode – from Output to Append. What these modes are – They are explained in the beginning of the article.

Sub AppendToTextFile()

Dim sFilePath As String
Dim iRow As Integer

Dim OrderDate As Date
Dim OrderPriority As String
Dim OrderQuantity As Integer
Dim Discount As Double
Dim ShipMode As String
Dim CustomerName As String
Dim ShipDate As Date

    iRow = 2
    sFilePath = "C:UsersVishwaDesktopLEM.txt"
    
    ' unique file number to access the file uniquely
    fileNumber = FreeFile
    
    ' to check if file name LEM.txt exists
    ' if not, end the program
    If (VBA.Len(VBA.Dir(sFilePath))) = 0 Then MsgBox "File Does not exists": End
    
    ' Open the TextFile in Append mode
    ' in order to write in something
    Open sFilePath For Append As #fileNumber
    
    ' Loop to read one by one every
    ' non empty row and write them
    ' in the text file
    Do
    With Sheets("Orders")
        OrderDate = .Cells(iRow, 1).Value
        OrderPriority = .Cells(iRow, 2).Value
        OrderQuantity = .Cells(iRow, 3).Value
        Discount = .Cells(iRow, 4).Value
        ShipMode = .Cells(iRow, 5).Value
        CustomerName = .Cells(iRow, 6).Value
        ShipDate = .Cells(iRow, 7).Value
    End With
    ' Now write these data in text file in next line
    Write #fileNumber, OrderDate, OrderPriority, OrderQuantity, Discount, ShipMode, ShipDate
    
    ' go to the next row in Excel sheet
    iRow = iRow + 1
    Loop Until IsEmpty(Sheets("Orders").Cells(iRow, 1).Value)
    
    ' Close the file once all data
    ' is written in text file
    Close #fileNumber
End Sub

Note: All the new information gets appended at the end of the text file (from the first blank line)
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