How do I Open a Platinum Exported File in Excel?

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Summary

This article explains how to open a .TXT or .CSV file produced from Platinum in Excel.

More Information

If the File is a Report Printed to File via Print Record 98

  • Open Excel.
  • Go to " File Open".
  • Change " Files of Type" to 'All Files'.
  • Browse to Desktop and click on your Platinum Folder Icon, then click the output folder and look for your exported file.
'NoPrint.TXT'.
  • Left Click the file.
    • This will open the 'Text Import Wizard Step 1 of 3' box.
  • Select 'Fixed Width' and click [Next].
At this point you will see the the data in the preview section in the lower part of the window.
  • Move the dividing lines to the required positions to outline the start and end of each column.
  • Highlight each field in turn by clicking each column in the preview section in the lower part of the window and make sure each relevant field is marked as 'Text' in the 'Column Data Format' section.
  • Click 'Finish'.

If the File is a Delimited File

  • Open Excel.
  • Go to " File Open".
  • Browse to the location of your saved file in the above step.
  • Change " Files of Type" to 'All Files'.
  • Left Click the file.
  • This will open the 'Text Import Wizard Step 1 of 3' box.
  • Select 'Delimited' and click [Next].
At this point you will see the the data split into the appropriate columns in the preview section in the lower part of the window.
  • Un-tick [Tab] and tick [Comma] or [Semicolon] depending on the separator used in the report by left clicking and click "Next".
  • Highlight each field in turn by clicking each column in the preview section in the lower part of the window and make sure each relevant field is marked as 'Text' in the 'Column Data Format' section.
  • Click 'Finish'.
Note: To explain "relevant field" in more detail, this is where the data in a column can contain both letters and numbers, for example Stock Codes, or where the column contains numbers that are not intended to be actual numbers, for example telephone numbers. Excel when opening .CSV files will strip leading zeroes off columns if it deciphers the data as a number, so if you have stock codes that start with a zero, e.g '0013400', then if you simply opened a .CSV file, the data would appear as '13400' and this could have serious consequences. By flagging the column as 'Text' as you use the Text Import Wizard you will prevent the leading zeroes being stripped. You can also prevent Excel stripping leading zeroes by having your output file prefix the data in the field with an "=" sign.

Saving the Output

This will show the data in Excel split into the appropriate columns. Go to " File Save As" and save with an appropriate name and change the "Save As File Type" to 'Microsoft Office Excel Workbook (.XLS)' and save to a location of your choice.

See also


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Keywords AND Misspellings
open, platinum, exported, report, file, excel, xls, xlsx, csv, txt
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