Export Multiple Fields of Data to One Excel Cell

[Brian K. White]

On 4/26/2012 6:36 PM, Scott Walker wrote:
>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Kenneth Brody [mailto:kenbrody at spamcop.net]
>> Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2012 5:33 PM
>> To: Scott Walker
>> Cc: filepro-list at lists.celestial.com
>> Subject: Re: Export Multiple Fields of Data to One Excel Cell
>>
>> On 4/26/2012 4:53 PM, Scott Walker wrote:
>>>> I have a file with part#, description line 1, description line 2 and
>>>> description line 3
>>>>
>>>> I want to export these fields to a csv file and then import it into
>>>> excel
>>>>
>>>> I want part# to be in column a and the three lines of description to
>>>> all be in column b.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Sort of like:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Part#		Description
>>>>
>>>> 123434		Description Line One Text
>>>> 		Description Line Two Text
>>>> 		Description Line Three Text
>>>>
>>>> 3322222	Description Line One Text
>>>> 		Description Line Two Text
>>>>
>>>> Is this possible.
>>>>
>>> To be more precise,  I want all the description lines to be in one
>>> Excel cell.
>>
>> A quick test with Excel 2007 shows that you can put a multi-line string
>> inside of quotes, and it imports it as a single cell from a CSV file.
>>
>> You should be able to simply put all of the description lines into a
>> single filePro field -- use CHR("10") to insert a line-break -- and export
>> it as usual.
>>
>> --
>> Kenneth Brody
>
> Ken,
>
> Thanks for taking a shot but that just does not work for me.  I found that
> from the keyboard, Excel uses<Alt><Enter>  as it's soft return.  Maybe
> someone could tell me the codes for that I can try inserting them into the
> file.
>
> Regards,
>
> Scott

You didn't try what Ken said. You tried something else and so it doesn't 
matter what it did or didn't do.
Keyboard entry has nothing to do with data in the file.

alt enter is just a way of entering something, it's not literally alt 
enter in the file, in fact there is no such thing as an alt character.

I export multi-line data within a single csv field all the time for 
exporting contacts into PIM apps, the notes field will be several lines. 
I just insert the chr("10") just like Ken showed.

Not every single csv-reading application necessarily can handle it, but 
that is an application-specific problem.

IE, fp, palm desktop, and ms outlook all definitely handle that just 
fine since that's what I do all the time.
I don't have MS excel on this machine since I've only used open office 
for ages, and now google docs too, so I can't say absolutely that ms 
excel will import that format since I can't try it right now and don't 
remember the last time I did try it, but I don't remember it not-working.

Any application might happen to have a broken csv import routine that 
ends the record at the first line-feed regarless if it was within a 
quoted field or whether it had an accompanying carriage return, that 
doesn't mean you exported wrongly, it just means that app has a crap 
import ability that you'll have to work harder to figure out a way to 
please it, if there is any way at all. Usually by writing something like 
what you want in the app istelf, and then exporting from that app, and 
then looking at what that app generated, and that will tell you what 
that app will probably be able to import. And whatever you discover from 
that, it really just applies to that app. It does not define right and 
wrong in general.

-- 
bkw