Re: Excel - usable format

I apologize if this is somewhat of a stupid question, but is opening up this file in Excel and clicking "File | Save as... | Save as type: CSV" not an option?

I believe there are a few Excel:: modules that will allow you to read and write Excel data. You might be able to export this.

If you literally mean you have input data with the format you mention above (thus making it pipe-delimited ASCII data, not an "Excel database"), it should be just a matter of splitting on the |'s and re-writing with commas, yes? There's some escaping to do (which Text::CSV can probably help with), but it should be fairly straightforward.

I apologize if I misunderstood your question.

Comment on Re: Excel - usable format

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Re: Re: Excel - usable format by Anonymous Monk on Oct 25, 2002 at 16:02 UTC
You can also create an html representations of an Excel document that excel can load. The advantage of this approach over the Text:CSV format is that you get more control over the appearance of the spreadsheet. Column width, Fonts are controlable. You can also do formulas. The reason for doing this is to create Excel output from another program that is not excel. Try this: 1. Create using Excel a simple version of the spreadsheet you want to produce. SaveAs 'html' if you open it with notepad you will see a text format that can be produced by a program. 2. Rename the file with an xls extention. When you open it Excel opens it just as if it were an excel file. 3. Create your file using the format you saw in step #1 substitute your own values. Problems: If you have data in more than one worksheet in your excel file the SaveAs 'html' produces a file, a folder with a bunch of other files. This makes things much more complicated. In my case I am trying to make email attachements the multi file version of this is not good. Conclusion: If you are creating something with just one worksheet or have a more robust way of distributing your result the html format works well.	[reply]

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Re: Re: Excel - usable format
by Anonymous Monk on Oct 25, 2002 at 16:02 UTC

You can also create an html representations of an Excel document that excel can load. The advantage of this approach over the Text:CSV format is that you get more control over the appearance of the spreadsheet. Column width, Fonts are controlable. You can also do formulas. The reason for doing this is to create Excel output from another program that is not excel. Try this: 1. Create using Excel a simple version of the spreadsheet you want to produce. SaveAs 'html' if you open it with notepad you will see a text format that can be produced by a program. 2. Rename the file with an xls extention. When you open it Excel opens it just as if it were an excel file. 3. Create your file using the format you saw in step #1 substitute your own values. Problems: If you have data in more than one worksheet in your excel file the SaveAs 'html' produces a file, a folder with a bunch of other files. This makes things much more complicated. In my case I am trying to make email attachements the multi file version of this is not good. Conclusion: If you are creating something with just one worksheet or have a more robust way of distributing your result the html format works well.

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