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Sometimes when I paste space delimited values from a text file into excel it automatically separates them into the correct columns. Other times I have to use the "Text to Columns" tool. I haven't been able to determine what allows for the super efficient behavior - seems to occur randomly to me - and all the files/data I copy and paste in is always formatted the same way (i.e. same number of spaces between the decimal values).

How do I get the super efficient auto formatting upon pasting to occur regularly or on demand?

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In my experience, Excel remembers your delimiting settings per Excel session, so when you close the application it will revert back to the default setting (i.e. requiring additional manipulation)

If you have any control over the format of the files you are importing it will help to change the delimiter from space to tab. By default, tab-delimited data is split correctly in Excel.

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You tagged with microsoft-excel-2011, which is a Mac version, so I assume you are using a Mac.

I use Windows Excel, and in this environment, the Excel session will remember the settings last used in the Import wizard (or text to columns wizard) and will apply these settings to any pasted content.

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  • This occurs on my both my MacBook's 2011 version of Excel and several different Windows versions of Excel.
    – traggatmot
    Mar 20, 2015 at 13:18

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