Text file open in excel

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?

• Comma-separated files (.csv) or tab-separated files (.txt), see how to import data from a structured text file,
• Files with fixed-width columns without delimiters between data columns where data starts at fixed positions of the line:

To import data from a text file, do the following:

   1.   On the File tab, click Open (or click
Ctrl+O).

   2.   On the Open pane, click the Browse button:

   3.   On the Open dialog box:

• Select the path to the text file you want to import,
• From the File Type dropdown list, select All Files or Text Files:

  

• Click the Open button.

   4.   In the Text Import Wizard – Step 1 of 3 dialog box:

   4.1.   In the Original data type group, choose the Fixed width option:

Note: If you see delimiters, leave the option Delimited selected and follow the steps of importing a structured text file.

   4.2.   You can change the File origin to use another encoding to display the data (you need to know the character encoding for the data or try other encodings until you see the correct data in the preview section):

   4.3.   Click the Next > button.

   5.   In the Text Import Wizard – Step 2 of 3 dialog box:

   5.1.   Create, move, and delete break lines:

   5.2.   Click the Next > button.

   6.   In the Text Import Wizard – Step 3 of 3 dialog box:

   6.1.   Select the column and the appropriate data format for this column in the Column data format group:

Notes:

1. You can skip this step and format columns after importing.
2. You can click the Advanced… button to select the correct Decimal separator and Thousands separator (see how to change the used by default decimal symbol and digit grouping symbol):

   

3. You can ignore some columns for importing by selecting the Do not import column (skip) in the Column data format group (the second column Session in the previous example).

   6.2.   Repeat the previous step for all columns you want to import and click Finish.

Excel imports all the data you selected:

See also this tip in French:
Comment importer un fichier texte dans la feuille de calcul Excel.

Your data could be in any form from PDF, TXT, PNG, JPG, to CSV files. Some applications create files in the form of a PDF whereas other apps generate data files in the form of a TXT or CSV file. On the whole, you must be struggling to convert a Text file to an Excel spreadsheet because switching data into a single file can work differently instead of multiple files.

With Microsoft Excel, you can do this task frequently because it has many features that can help you execute multiple functions. Suppose, you are having a list of items in a TXT file, with Excel you can easily import the list to process it differently.

Here you will get to know exactly how converting a text file to an Excel spreadsheet could be an easygoing thing.

You can do this by:

• Using the Text Import Wizard
• Opening the file directly in Excel

So, before getting into the boat let’s have a look at what a text file basically is?

What is a Text File?

In a text file, as the name shows, you will see the text without special formattings such as italic, bold, images, or other formats. A text file appears with a .txt extension and you can view this file in any text editor such as Notepad or a word processor like Microsoft Word. However, you can open a text file in Excel to make further changes.

Let’s get to know how it all happens:

Converting a Text File to Excel Spreadsheet – How it Works

Normally, two methods exist for this as mentioned earlier:

• Text Import Wizard
• Direct File open in Excel

Using the Text Import Wizard to Convert a Text File to Excel

The Text Import Wizard feature could be one of the best tools when you need to import the data of a text file at some specific place on the spreadsheet of Excel.

Your text file gets scanned using the Wizard tool and it ensures that the data in the file is imported exactly as you want it to.

To make this tool functional, simply choose the Data tab given in the “From Text” menu located under the “Get External Data” group.

Later on, choose the text file you need to import.

Now, you will see the Text Import Wizard appears automatically.

Here are 3 steps that will guide you further to import the text file:

Step 1:

At first, you may need to provide the settings for the following:

Original Data Type:

In this option, you have to choose how your data should be separated into columns. You have two options:

Delimited: If the text file data is being separated using tabs, colons, semicolons, or other characters, you will have to choose this option.

Fixed Width: If each item in the columns of your data has similar width then you should choose this option.

Start Import at Row:

Type or choose the first row of the data right from you want to start importing.

File Origin:

Choose the character set that your text files use such as 437. Generally, you can leave it in the default setting.

My Data has Headers:

If the data set of your Text file has headers, then you have to check this field.  

Step 2:

In case, if you had selected the “Delimited” button in the earlier step, then it is the time to indicate the delimiters in your data such as commas, tabs, semicolons, etc. You can even specify the consecutive delimiters in the data to be as one.

Further in this step, you can indicate the character if the text values are covered in a special set of characters such as single or double quotes. Do you know these characters are known as “Text qualifiers” that can help in indicating the set of values to be counted as one? For instance, “Scott, Steve” is considered as a single value, whereas a comma delimiter separates both words.

Once the conversion is done, at the bottom of the screen a preview of how your data is affected in the sheet will appear. In this step, you can identify widths for all columns if you had selected the “Fixed Width” button in the earlier step. If you click at some useful pointers on the scale, you can bring in a new column break in the preview window.

The column break is represented with a line having an arrow. To move a line break, you will have to drag it and if you want to remove it, just double click on it.

Step 3:

Once you are done specifying the values, now you should specify the data format for all columns. It’s up to you whether you need the column to be in the default format that the Text Import Wizard has set for you or you may want to set the format to be General, Text, or Date.

To select the format you need, just select a column from the preview window. To remove a selected column, just choose the last radio button saying, “Do not import column”.

By pressing the “Advanced” button, a dialog box of the Advanced Text Import Settings will pop up.

From this dialog box, you will find options to specify advanced formatting. For instance, to specify what decimal or separators have been used in the text file, you may use the Advanced Text Import Settings. It is because they must be compatible with the regional settings of your computer.

Click on the Finish button once you are done with all the settings for the imported text data.

Clicking on the finish button will pop up the Import Data dialog box.

From this box, you can then choose where you need the data of your text file imported. You have to choose or type in a reference to the cell if you need to import this data into the current worksheet. On the other hand, if you need it to open in a new worksheet, then choose the radio button next to “New Worksheet.”

Now, click on the OK button and the file will start importing to the designated location in Excel.

Using the Direct File Open to Convert a Text or CSV File into Excel

In Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, and 2016, you will see all the steps are similar to importing a TXT or CSV file into Excel.

Go to the Excel spreadsheet that is needed to have the data and click on the Data tab.

Choose the “From Text” option given in the Get External Data group.

Choose the TXT or CSV file that is needed to convert and click on the Import option.

Now, choose “Delimited”. As you know a delimiter is just a new way that explains you TXT file has tabs or the CSV file has commas to separate and group the data.

Choose the Next option.

In the Data preview field, choose the delimiter that helps in grouping the data in a separate column. Basically, you have to choose “Tab” while converting a TXT file to Excel spreadsheet and “Comma” while converting a CSV file.

Also, note that selecting the “Space” option could split a single column into multiple columns at times when the header has more than one word.

Now, click on the Next option.

Choose “General”.

Click on the “Finish” button.

Select “Existing Worksheet” and add “=$A$1” to the field. It will make sure that data starts in Row 1, Column A of the spreadsheet. Having a blank row in the sheet could lead to a file import error.

Click on the OK button.

Click Save.