hi Marshall, I was hoping not to seek your help unless it was utterly necessary, I figured out how to transpose and replicate values for empty columns, but when I put this code to test I was facing few practical issues with the code you modified for me, 
2017 Position log :Fp379
place: cal
time: 23:01:45


   |   |      |Pos     |value   |   |bulk|lot|   prev| newest|
   |#  |Locker|(dfg)   |(no)    |nul|val |Id |   val |val   |
   -----------------------------------------------------------
   |  0|     1|  302832|  -11.88|  1|   0|Pri|     16|      0|
   |  1|     9|  302836|   11.88|  9|   0|Pri|     10|      0|
   |  2|     1|  302832|  -11.88|  5|   3|Pri|     14|      4|
   |  3|     3|  302833|   11.88|  1|   0|sec|     12|      0|
   |  4|     6|  302837|  -11.88|  1|   0|Pri|     16|      3|

language data:
time= 24hrs
|no.| name | languages | proficiency | time taken|
|_ _| _ _ _| _ _ _ _ _ |_ _ _ _ _ _ _| _ _ _ _ _ |      
|1  | eliz | English   | good        | 24 hrs    |
|2  | susan| Spanish   | good        | 13 hrs    |
|3  | danny| Italian   | decent      | 21 hrs    |
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
|no.|  name | age  | place | year |
|_ _|_ _ _ _|_ _ _ | _ _ _ |  _ _ |
|1  |  sue  |33    | NY    | 2015 |
|2  |  mark |28    | cal   | 2106 |

2017 Review log :Gt149
place: NY
time: 13:31:15
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
|no.|  name |level | dist  | year |
|_ _|_ _ _ _|_ _ _ | _ _ _ |  _ _ |
|1  |  sue  |96    | Gl    | 2015 |
|2  |  mark |67    | Yt   | 2106 |

[download]
the problem I have is that there isn't just one table under a header ,there are multiple tables(of different sizes) under each header as shown, by observation I found out that the page (header+tables) ends only when we find year(2017) in the next line ,the position log here has 3 tables and each with its own header and it ends only when we see the next "2017" (Review log) PS: max tables in a page are 4.

In reply to Re^8: Parsing .txt into arrays by Fshah
in thread Parsing .txt into arrays by Fshah

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