Export an Excel spreadsheet to fixed-width text file?

Question

Excel has the functionality to import fixed-width text files where it presents a dialog that lets you choose where the begins and ends of fields are which it puts into columns.

Does it also have functionality where, given an existing spreadsheet, you can export to a fixed-width text file?

If so, how do I access this? I have tried using Save As and choosing Text File but it seems to only save as Tab-delimited which doesn't help me.

This is Excel 2003 if it matters.

Answer 1

I think the closest you can get from native Excel functionality is Save As | Formatted Text (Space Delimited) (*.prn). It will automatically determine the widths and insert spaces to pad to that width as necessary.

Beyond that you need to have a macro or other add-in that will let you do more.

Answer 2

If you have Office Professional, you can open your Excel file in Access, and then Export from Access. Access will let you specify a fixed-width layout for your exported file, and gives you extremely granular controls for specifying those widths.

Answer 3

Wow, I was going to ask this question myself but it was already asked. All Excel clipboard output is tab delimited by default. This is kind of annoying for "real" plain text output when you have a fixed width font but not necessarily tab delimiter support.

Anyway, I found and modified a small Excel Macro that will copy the currently selected region as a simple fixed-width columns ASCII table -- like so:

187712 201    37     0.18   
2525   580    149    0.25   
136829 137    43     0.31   

Here's the Macro code. To use it, make sure you enable the Developer tab in Excel Options if you are using Excel 2007 or later.

Sub CopySelectionToClipboardAsText()

   ' requires a reference to "Windows Forms 2.0 Object Library"
   ' add it via Tools / References; if it does not appear in the list
   ' manually add it as the path C:\Windows\System32\FM20.dll

    Dim r As Long, c As Long
    Dim selectedrows As Integer, selectedcols As Integer

    Dim arr
    arr = ActiveSheet.UsedRange
    selectedrows = UBound(arr, 1)
    selectedcols = UBound(arr, 2)

    Dim temp As Integer
    Dim cellsize As Integer
    cellsize = 0
    For c = 1 To selectedcols
        temp = Len(CStr(Cells(1, c)))
        If temp > cellsize Then
            cellsize = temp
        End If
    Next c
    cellsize = cellsize + 1

    Dim line As String
    Dim output As String

    For r = 1 To selectedrows
        line = Space(selectedcols * cellsize)
        For c = 1 To selectedcols
            Mid(line, c * cellsize - cellsize + 1, cellsize) = Cells(r, c)
        Next c
        output = output + line + Chr(13) + Chr(10)
    Next r

    Dim MyData As MSForms.DataObject
    Set MyData = New DataObject
    MyData.SetText output
    MyData.PutInClipboard

    MsgBox "The current selection was formatted and copied to the clipboard"

End Sub

Answer 4

First, format your data as Courier New (or some other fixed width font). Then save as .prn and you'll get true fixed width.

Answer 5

Expanding on Jeff Atwood's answer, since it would not let me comment there:

I modified his macro to set the column width to the widest cell in that column and to have each column its own width. His macro only found the widest cell in the first row and then set the width of all columns to it.

Sub CopySelectionToClipboardAsText()

   ' requires a reference to "Windows Forms 2.0 Object Library"
   ' add it via Tools / References; if it does not appear in the list
   ' manually add it as the path C:\Windows\System32\FM20.dll

    Dim r As Long, c As Long, linesize As Long
    Dim selectedrows As Integer, selectedcols As Integer

    Dim arr
    arr = ActiveSheet.UsedRange
    selectedrows = UBound(arr, 1)
    selectedcols = UBound(arr, 2)
    ReDim CellSizes(1 To selectedcols, 2) As Integer

    Dim temp As Integer
    Dim cellsize As Integer
    linesize = 0
    For c = 1 To selectedcols
        cellsize = 0
        For r = 1 To selectedrows
            temp = Len(CStr(Cells(r, c)))
            If temp > cellsize Then
                cellsize = temp
            End If
        Next
        CellSizes(c, 0) = cellsize + 1
        CellSizes(c, 1) = linesize
        linesize = linesize + cellsize + 1
    Next c

    Dim line As String
    Dim output As String

    For r = 1 To selectedrows
        line = Space(linesize)
        For c = 1 To selectedcols
            Mid(line, CellSizes(c, 1) + 1, CellSizes(c, 0)) = Cells(r, c)
        Next c
        output = output + line + Chr(13) + Chr(10)
    Next r

    Dim MyData As MSForms.DataObject
    Set MyData = New DataObject
    MyData.SetText output
    MyData.PutInClipboard

    MsgBox "The current selection was formatted and copied to the clipboard"

End Sub

Answer 6

It works with Access out of the box: https://support.office.com/en-ie/article/export-data-to-a-text-file-f72dfc38-a8a0-4c5b-8c2c-bf2950814140#bmsteps with this way I managaed it quite easy and fast - better than with Excel. In my case it was a conversion of the table.

Answer 7

@squillman's answer works perfectly fine. If, however, you want to use space padding instead of tab padding, you could use

=CONCAT(A1,REPT(" ",MAX(LEN(A$1:A$10))+2-LEN(A1)))

Where you have to replace

1. A1 with the cell which you would like topadd on the right
2. 2 with the number of spaces with which you want to separate two consecutive columns
3. A$1:A$10 with the reference to the column in context.

Answer 8

This is a killer for me. It has a few options as well.

http://www.sensefulsolutions.com/2010/10/format-text-as-table.html