A user suggested using the OpenText command to import a pipe delimited text file into excel. The problem is, that this seems to hijack the filename and forces it to be a .txt instead of an xlsx. When I try to
-replace ".txt.*", the .txt remains and when I try to force name the file .xlsx, it just makes a "corrupt" xlsx file that won't open properly in excel.
First Question
Finding Powershell names for Excel features
.txt and .xlsx are fundamentally different file types. You can't magically convert one into the other by just renaming the file.
Going out on a limb I guess your problem is that you're trying to save the file, and $excel.ActiveWorkbook.SaveAs($y) (or whatever statement you use) doesn't create an actual workbook.
Try saving it as xlWorkbookDefault:
$excel.ActiveWorkbook.SaveAs($y, 51)
Related
I have done quite a bit of searching before posting this question so let me outline what I am trying to do.
1.) I do not want to use applications I have to download from a website or created custom commands (please no start Xls2Csv.exe here's a link to a website where you can download the program) I do not want to download a program to do this.
2.) I want to keep it in the batch file if possible - I have tried the vbc/vbs/vb files that is not what I am looking for.
3.) I found this an this is close to what I need but if I can stay within a batch file that would be best: Can a Batch File Tell a program to save a file as? (If so how)
Background
I have a bunch of test records stored in excel sheets within folders. Each test record has autoformatted name so the only real difference between any of the filenames is a serial number, otherwise each file name is formatted the exact same way.
I have written a batch file to search and find the files I need but I am stuck on obtaining a tiny bit of information in a .xls file.
What I am trying to do - I have excel files (.xls) and there is a word in a cell on one of many sheets that I would like to copy into a textfile. However I am unable to use findstr for an excel find because the command searches the file as if you opened it in notepad and the data I need is not present.
I am not concerned of data loss as long as I can get this tiny bit of information to a text file.
Otherwise what I have found to be the best solution is to convert an XLS to a CSV. I have manually done it by opening the file and saving as type .csv that worked.
What hasn't worked is:
example1.xls >> example2.csv
ren example1.xls example3.csv - this will save it as a csv file but still opens with the same formating of the xls file in both excel and notepad.
I was hoping that the was a command to recreate the manual process of opening the file and saving as csv.
If there are any other suggested solutions - maybe a command where I can search for a string within an excel file? That would be the simplest option.
Here's my problem:
I want to open an Excel file which serves as a template. This file should be edited and then saved. The name is a variable, so it should always change. I.e. variable A that changes all the time.
With the function [xlsread] I open the template and with the function [xlswrite] I can change it as I like and it works without problems. The problem is I can't save the file separately, that means that after editing the template I only get 1 file back, but I want to keep the template and get an edited file so I can use the template again. I could not find a way to save the edited Excel file.
Please help me
There is a mistake in your thinking. xlsread reads the whole file and keeps it in memory. When you use xlswrite your variables from memory are written to a file, with no link to the file read (as long as you change the file name).
That having said, please note that Matlab recommends to use writetable/writematrix/writecell instead of xlswrite. The same is true for xlsread => readtable/readmatrix/readcell.
I have an Excel sheet with an embedded txt file which I would like to copy into a certain target folder.
I used the following code which works fine if I use it from my computer:
'copy oleobject
ActiveSheet.OLEObjects(1).Copy
'paste to activeworkbook's path
CreateObject("Shell.Application") _
.Namespace(ActiveWorkbook.path) _
.Self.InvokeVerb "Paste"
However, some of my colleagues did receive the text file which was embedded in the Excel sheet with an additional line beforehand which included the file save path in the temporary folder.
I could just delete this line with VBA but I would like to understand why this happens with other computers and not with mine.
Please help!
Thanks
OK so here is the issue:
txt file is a template and VBA is supposed to read it in again in a string file and change it. Until now it was just saved in a different folder and that worked fine but for mobility reasons (to be used by many other users) it would be a great advantage if it could be handled with just one file.
It is possible to do this with txt file embedded in Excel, but embedded files are not really well-supported by VBA automation. Most files only have a few methods available, and if I remember correctly with TXT file type, the available method is to open the file.
ActiveSheet.OLEObjects(1).OLEFormat.DoVerb 1
I mentioned a similar problem that I had (in PPT, instead of Excel, but the issue is the same). The route we chose initially was given here:
Extracting an OLEObject (XML Document) from PowerPoint VBA
Invoke the .OLEFormat.DoVerb 1 to open the file in Notepad
Use WinAPI functions to read the contents of Notepad into a string
variable
Use WinAPI functions to close Notepad
Use FileSystemObject to write/modify a new text file
Embed the new, modified text file
The functions to find and read Notepad contents are documented here and require some use of WinAPI functions (all noted in the link):
http://www.excelforum.com/excel-programming-vba-macros/729730-access-another-unsaved-excel-instance-and-unsaved-notepad-text.html
This is a LOT of work for not much benefit, instead you could simply open a file dialog prompting user to choose the text file (located on a shared network drive, etc.). This would be much more reliable.
Alternatively, depending on the size of the text file, you can store the contents inside a Shape (and you can put the shape on a hidden worksheet, etc.), either in the .TextFrame or another property that allows text. Ultimately we abandoned the solution in the links above in favor of storing the contents inside a Shape's .AlternativeText property. This worked very well for us, in storing XML contents of about 500,000 to 1 million characters per file.
The reason we chose not to go the Notepad route is that there was a lag while the file is being read and user could accidentally interrupt the procedure, corrupting the file(s), etc. and that Notepad doesn't fully support automation, etc.
I also thought of using a text field but if the oleoobject would work I thought I could also embed other file types like pictures.
Pictures are easy to work with because they have a built-in .Export method.
I'm using the TransferSpreadsheet command to export Access queries to an Excel file in a folder. I realize I can specify a file name (with extension) for it to create, but I decided to experiment and left out a file name in the destination path. The result was an Excel file with the query name saved as a .xlsb file.
I'd never heard of this, but it opened fine and after research I found that it is a more compact, quicker to open/save/close than traditional .xls. Great! These exported Excel files will be opened by potentially 20-25 users, each of whom has one of Excel 03, 07, or 10. For flexibility's sake, I would prefer to export the query without defining a file name.
Is .xlsb compatible with all of these? If so, is there any reason to not use this format? Can the end user format, modify, or otherwise tinker with a .xlsb file as though it was .xls?
.xlsb was introduced in excel 2007 alongside .xlsx and .xlsm. All three formats use the OPC standard and are conceptually similar (whereas .xls, while also a binary format, is much different -- for example, it uses an OLE container format rather than zip)
.xlsb is not compatible with .xls, and AFAICT there are no open source tools that can write XLSB. The j tool (available on node npm at https://npmjs.org/package/j) appears to parse XLSB. If you expect others to use their own tools (not excel) then you are better off sticking with XLS. However, if Excel is part of the workflow, then XLSB is a compelling option
I have a .csv file in my matlab folder with 38 columns and about 48 thousand entries. I was hoping on using the findcluster gui but it only accepts .dat files.
How do I create a .dat file in matlab or specifically how do I convert the .csv file into a .dat file that can be used by the matlab fcm clustering tool?
example of csv:
how would I go about creating a data file for this kind of information?
The only documentation I could find about the file format was
The data set must have the extension .dat. For example, to load the data set,
clusterdemo.dat, type findcluster('clusterdemo.dat').
I checked clusterdemo.dat and found that the data is stored in ASCII format. Therefore, try
a = csvread('data.csv');
save 'data.dat' a -ASCII
Just rename xxx.csv to xxx.dat. This worked for me.
you should try changing extension.For changing extension you can go to folder settingļ and in view where we show hidden fileā¦uncheck the hide extension for known files and now you can change the extension of any file by renaming it.
Because
There really isn't such a thing as 'dat' format, a 'dat' file is just a text file, it could theoretically have any extension you want.It could also be delimited however you want/need, it all really depends on what you are trying to achieve.
ie what are you going to use this file for?
If it's for use with another application then the requirements of that application will probably dictate how it's delimited/structured etc.
OR simply you can save the file from the excel as .csv and then later can change the extension.
It worked for me.