11-09-2010, 05:41 PM | #1 (permalink) |
I'm calmer than you are, dude
Location: North Carolina
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Need help with Excel
I was hoping someone here could help me out. I am trying to organize a course list for a friend. I have about 800 courses that are listed like so in column A:
ANT 1210 Introduction to Anthropology. I would like to separate the course abbreviation and number (the first 8 characters) in to column A and the course title in to column B for all 800. Is there a quick formula I can plug in to do this for me or am I stuck doing it manually? Thanks.
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Calmer than you are... |
11-09-2010, 06:41 PM | #2 (permalink) |
Crazy
Location: New England, USA
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Yes, there are a couple ways about it.
You can get the eight left characters in a cell by using the formula =left(cell with data,8). You can also go to Data, Text-to-Columns to split the text into two columns using the fixed-width option. |
11-09-2010, 06:56 PM | #3 (permalink) |
Currently sour but formerly Dlishs
Super Moderator
Location: Australia/UAE
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thanks a pretty cool trick Nep!
theres a guy online called The Excel Addict who send out weekly newsletters to his subscribers with free tips for excel. You may want to consider joining his list if you want to brush up on your excel skills. Ive been a part of it for about a year now and ive picked up many cool tricks.
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An injustice anywhere, is an injustice everywhere I always sign my facebook comments with ()()===========(}. Does that make me gay? - Filthy |
11-09-2010, 06:57 PM | #4 (permalink) | ||
I'm calmer than you are, dude
Location: North Carolina
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Quote:
Quote:
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Calmer than you are... |
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11-09-2010, 07:19 PM | #5 (permalink) |
Drifting
Administrator
Location: Windy City
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I didn't know about the Excel Addict but I'm in excel every day for my job.
I usually prefer the Text to Columns approach as I export large amounts of raw data from our database, and sometimes the formatting is different each time. So rather than try to set up formulas, I can set the parameters to catch either by comma, or fixed width. These seem to work for 95% of the data formatting.
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11-10-2010, 12:14 AM | #6 (permalink) | |
Evil Priest: The Devil Made Me Do It!
Location: Southern England
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Quote:
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Overhead, the Albatross hangs motionless upon the air, And deep beneath the rolling waves, In labyrinths of Coral Caves, The Echo of a distant time Comes willowing across the sand; And everthing is Green and Submarine ╚═════════════════════════════════════════╝ |
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11-10-2010, 09:17 AM | #7 (permalink) |
Sober
Location: Eastern Canada
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A more generic solution, if you're still looking for one is to use the FIND function in conjunction the LEN, RIGHT, and LEFT functions.
The formula LEFT(cell,(FIND(" ",cell)-1)) will give you all the characters to the left of the first space in a cell (note the space in quotations). The formula RIGHT(cell,(LEN(cell)-FIND(" ",cell))) will give you all the characters to the right of the first space in a cell. While more complicated, these will work if the original list is not a fixed length (Subject codes may have different numbers of letters, or the course numbers may have more or fewer digits).
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11-12-2010, 05:48 AM | #8 (permalink) |
People in masks cannot be trusted
Location: NYC
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A very good forum that offers excel help for free, is Excel Help Forum
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11-12-2010, 08:54 AM | #9 (permalink) |
Lover - Protector - Teacher
Location: Seattle, WA
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For anything that requires sophisticated parsing that I know the rules for, I'll paste the raw data into TextPad and then use regular expression Search and Replace to move it around. Then I'll just replace \w or empty space or number or whatever I need to with a delimiter (like comma) and save it as a csv. Then it opens in Excel NP. It's largely a carryover from 2003, where they didn't have Text to Column. 2007+'s T2C is awesome.
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11-13-2010, 02:42 AM | #10 (permalink) |
follower of the child's crusade?
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or else just use:
=left(A1,8) =mid (A1,9,50) It basically means: take the first 8 characters on the left take the 50 characters in the middle, starting from the 9th one in) If you have fixed characters, thats sometimes easier than using text to columns, as you can resort if ie - if you wanted to reverse it so the name was first and the course code last you could go: =(mid(A1,9.50)) & (left(A1,8)) _
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11-13-2010, 03:23 AM | #11 (permalink) |
Evil Priest: The Devil Made Me Do It!
Location: Southern England
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I never understood why there is a CONCATENATE and "&". Anyone know? They work the same way as far as I can see.
__________________
╔═════════════════════════════════════════╗
Overhead, the Albatross hangs motionless upon the air, And deep beneath the rolling waves, In labyrinths of Coral Caves, The Echo of a distant time Comes willowing across the sand; And everthing is Green and Submarine ╚═════════════════════════════════════════╝ |
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