How to import a txt file into an existing Calc sheet?

users
#1

Hello:

I have a currently existing Excel 2007 sheet that I can do a (In
Excel) Refresh All for \\APOLLO\e\WeatherLink\JACW3\download.txt which
is a test file in the format of:

                  Temp Hi Low Out Wind Wind Hi
Hi Wind Heat THSW Rain Solar Solar Hi
Solar UV Hi Heat Cool In In In In In
In Air Soil 1 Soil Leaf Wind Wind ISS Arc.
  Date Time Out Temp Temp Hum Dew Speed Dir Run
Speed Dir Chill Index THW Index Bar Rain Rate Rad.
Energy Rad. UV Dose UV D-D D-D Temp Hum Dew
Heat EMC Density ET Moist. Temp 1 Wet 1 Samp Tx Recept
Int.

#2

I have a currently existing Excel 2007 sheet that I can do a (In Excel) Refresh All for \\APOLLO\e\WeatherLink\JACW3\download.txt ...

So that's a file available to your system?

... which is a te[x]t file in the format of: [...] and is properly formatted automatically by a Text-To-Columns setup already in the MS Excel sheet so all I need to do each day is Refresh All and select the filename and it pulls in the data in the proper column.

For the life of me I cannot see how to do this in Calc...and opening the existing sheet gets the right format, but I'm at a loss of how to get new data into it without redoing the whole text to columns every time ...

Try this:
o Go to Insert | Sheet From File..., browse to your .txt file, and click Insert.
o In the Text Import dialogue, under "Separator options", select "Separated by", "Space", and "Merge delimiters".
o Click OK.
o In the Insert Sheet dialogue, select the position of your new sheet and - crucially - tick Link.
o Click OK.

Each time you open this spreadsheet, you will have the option to update this new sheet; alternatively, you can go to Edit | Links... and click Update. Note that, since the entire sheet is updated, any calculations you perform on that sheet will be lost - so you will have to move your calculations to other sheets.

If this data is downloaded from the web, you may prefer instead to use Insert | Link to External Data... and import directly from the web page.

... (not an option due to time constraints here each day when this has to happen...data is available at 59 past the hour and needs to just come in to be used by 15 past the next hour.

You can do a lot in sixteen minutes!

I trust this helps.

Brian Barker

#3

I have a currently existing Excel 2007 sheet that I can do a (In
Excel) Refresh All for \\APOLLO\e\WeatherLink\JACW3\download.txt ...

So that's a file available to your system?

Yes, its a flat file created from some weather equipment.

... which is a te[x]t file in the format of: [...] and is properly
formatted automatically by a Text-To-Columns setup already in the MS
Excel sheet so all I need to do each day is Refresh All and select
the filename and it pulls in the data in the proper column.

For the life of me I cannot see how to do this in Calc...and opening
the existing sheet gets the right format, but I'm at a loss of how
to get new data into it without redoing the whole text to columns
every time ...

Try this:
o Go to Insert | Sheet From File..., browse to your .txt file, and
click Insert.
o In the Text Import dialogue, under "Separator options", select
"Separated by", "Space", and "Merge delimiters".
o Click OK.
o In the Insert Sheet dialogue, select the position of your new
sheet and - crucially - tick Link.
o Click OK.

OK..that gets the file in, but the first 4 rows that are always locked
with Headers get replaced as well even if I say from Line 4, and I've
tried both before and after sheet options. Also there are some calc
lines at the bottom that in Excel are automatically moved down if
there is more data than what is there now. With Calc it blows them
away and replaces them with data, BIG problem as some of the formulas
are quite time consuming to reenter and there's at least one and
possibly as much as 3 for each column (Max, Min, etc)

Each time you open this spreadsheet, you will have the option to
update this new sheet; alternatively, you can go to Edit | Links...
and click Update. Note that, since the entire sheet is updated, any
calculations you perform on that sheet will be lost - so you will
have to move your calculations to other sheets.

OK...so I have to make a 2nd sheet then to do my calcs? Let me look at
that today once.

If this data is downloaded from the web, you may prefer instead to
use Insert | Link to External Data... and import directly from the web page.

No, its local, though it could be accessed by web as well. Let me look
at this as well.

... (not an option due to time constraints here each day when this
has to happen...data is available at 59 past the hour and needs to
just come in to be used by 15 past the next hour.

You can do a lot in sixteen minutes!

Like I said, the automated linking and calcs are critical to this
working. Much of the process I do it cookie cutter hence the premade
sheet etc.

I trust this helps.

I'll work with it a bit today and let you know where I end up.

#4

Hi :slight_smile:
I think i would approach this by using a database program rather than importing
into a spreadsheet program. A database program such as Base should be able to
read the text-files directly. Queries, Forms and Reports can be set-up to do
the required calculations.

Setting it up would not be trivial! It could be quite tricky especially if you
have never used a database program before. I would guess that it was not
trivial to set it up for Excel either.

Could you send me attachments off-list so i could have a copy of an original
text-file, the blank you import the text into and an example of a completed
sheet? I might have enough time to have a quick poke around and perhaps show to
some databasing experts over the next couple of weeks.

Until you can get Calc or Base or something to do the task you will need to keep
going back to Windows and MS Office. Migrating away from systems you have spent
years becoming familiar with often means returning for odd 1 or 2 tasks until
you are ready. There is no harm in running both systems alongside each other
until you are ready to move over completely.

Good luck and regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#5

Hi :slight_smile:
I think i would approach this by using a database program rather than importing
into a spreadsheet program. A database program such as Base should be able to
read the text-files directly. Queries, Forms and Reports can be set-up to do
the required calculations.

Interesting idea, and I'm open to change as long as it gives accurate
results I'm open to it.

Setting it up would not be trivial! It could be quite tricky especially if you
have never used a database program before. I would guess that it was not
trivial to set it up for Excel either.

It wasn't, I'm an IT guy by trade so am familiar with several DB
products.

Could you send me attachments off-list so i could have a copy of an original
text-file, the blank you import the text into and an example of a completed
sheet? I might have enough time to have a quick poke around and perhaps show to
some databasing experts over the next couple of weeks.

Look for them shortly along with the Excel sheet as well.

Until you can get Calc or Base or something to do the task you will need to keep
going back to Windows and MS Office. Migrating away from systems you have spent
years becoming familiar with often means returning for odd 1 or 2 tasks until
you are ready. There is no harm in running both systems alongside each other
until you are ready to move over completely.

That's what I'm doing now, no hurry here, I'm just finally getting
time to work on moving off 2007 because I don't want to pay huge $$ to
go to 2010 for a few items I use it for.

Good luck and regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

Thanks, I'm sure we'll be emailing quite a bit.

Files to Follow.

George

#6

Hi all,

I think i would approach this by using a database program rather than importing
into a spreadsheet program. A database program such as Base should be able to
read the text-files directly. Queries, Forms and Reports can be set-up to do
the required calculations.

Yes, you can bind text files directly to the HSQLDB backend :

http://hsqldb.org/doc/guide/ch06.html

in order to access them from LibreOffice, you would first need to create
an empty ODB database document, e.g. using the Database Creation Wizard.
Once the file has been created and saved, close it, reopen it, and then
execute the SQL statement provided in the HSQLDB documentation to bind
your text tables into the database. The SQL commands are executed from
the menu Tools > SQL... and not from the Query UI of the ODB container.

Alternatively, open your CSV in Calc, and then copy the whole sheet over
to the new DB as a new table. Things to be aware of if you are going the
Calc to Base route:

- type recognition between Base and Calc is not perfect, i.e. the engine
used for type recognition of data types sometimes gets it horribly wrong
for certain data types like decimal point containing data, date or
date/time data, especially if the locale is not EN-US.

- there is a bug in the date calculation engine that appears to cause
some dates to be misdisplayed or miscalculated with an offset of 1 or 2
days - this is a recurring old bug that has never been nailed because it
was too hard to track down exactly where the problem was coming from.

Good luck

Alex

#7

I think I have it worked out.
Thanks

#8

In such a situation, I import into a file (always named identically) which I then use as a source for an external worksheet where the actual computations are done. This way, the import never breaks anything.

#9

Using your data, I used
Edit > "paste special"
then chose "unformatted text" from the dialog. The dialog then wanted to know what the separator was. I tried "space" and it inserted data into cells but your data has a number spaces so I got many blank cells.

I tried to replace multiple spaces with a comma, and that worked, but your data doesn't have a consistent number of separating spaces so that did not appear to be useful. I played with it, and I believe if you separate the data items with a single space, a tab, or something that Calc likes for a separator you may have some luck with "paste special".

Hope this helps.

--David Teague

Hello:

I have a currently existing Excel 2007 sheet that I can do a (In
Excel) Refresh All for \\APOLLO\e\WeatherLink\JACW3\download.txt which
is a test file in the format of:

                   Temp Hi Low Out Wind Wind Hi
Hi Wind Heat THSW Rain Solar Solar Hi
Solar UV Hi Heat Cool In In In In In
In Air Soil 1 Soil Leaf Wind Wind ISS Arc.
   Date Time Out Temp Temp Hum Dew Speed Dir Run
Speed Dir Chill Index THW Index Bar Rain Rate Rad.
Energy Rad. UV Dose UV D-D D-D Temp Hum Dew
Heat EMC Density ET Moist. Temp 1 Wet 1 Samp Tx Recept
Int.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  7/22/11 0:01 75.6 75.6 75.6 69 64.7 1.0 WNW 0.02
1.0 WNW 75.6 77.3 77.3 75.1 1009.5 0.00 0.00 0 0.00
0 0.0 0.00 0.0 0.000 0.007 79.5 46 56.9 79.3 8.46
.0722 0.000 153 69.0 15 9 1 39.1 1
  7/22/11 0:02 75.6 75.6 75.6 69 64.7 2.0 WNW 0.03
3.0 WNW 75.6 77.3 77.3 75.1 1009.5 0.00 0.00 0 0.00
0 0.0 0.00 0.0 0.000 0.007 79.5 47 57.5 79.3 8.66
.0722 0.000 153 69.0 15 20 1 87.0 1
  7/22/11 0:03 75.6 75.6 75.6 69 64.7 1.0 WNW 0.02
2.0 WNW 75.6 77.3 77.3 75.1 1009.5 0.00 0.00 0 0.00
0 0.0 0.00 0.0 0.000 0.007 79.5 47 57.5 79.3 8.66
.0722 0.000 153 69.0 15 22 1 95.7 1
  7/22/11 0:04 75.6 75.6 75.6 69 64.7 1.0 WNW 0.02
3.0 WNW 75.6 77.3 77.3 75.1 1009.5 0.00 0.00 0 0.00
0 0.0 0.00 0.0 0.000 0.007 79.5 48 58.1 79.4 8.86
.0721 0.000 153 69.0 15 21 1 91.3 1
  7/22/11 0:05 75.6 75.6 75.6 69 64.7 1.0 WNW 0.02
3.0 WNW 75.6 77.3 77.3 75.1 1009.5 0.00 0.00 0 0.00
0 0.0 0.00 0.0 0.000 0.007 79.5 48 58.1 79.4 8.86
.0721 0.000 153 69.0 15 21 1 91.3 1

and is properly formatted automatically by a Text-To Colums setup
already in the MS Excel sheet so all I need to do each day is Refresh
All and select the filename and it pulls in the data in the proper
column.

For the life of me I cannot see how to do this in Calc...and opening
the existing sheet gets the right format, but I'm at a loss of how to
get new data into it without redoing the whole text to columns every
time (not an option due to time constraints here each day when this
has to happen...data is available at 59 past the hour and needs to jut
come in to be used by 15 past the next hour.

Can anyone help with this? As of right now its the one thing keeping
me from dumping the Office 2007 suite.

  7/22/11 0:01 75.6 75.6 75.6 69 64.7 1.0 WNW 0.02
1.0 WNW 75.6 77.3 77.3 75.1 1009.5 0.00 0.00 0 0.00
0 0.0 0.00 0.0 0.000 0.007 79.5 46 56.9 79.3 8.46
.0722 0.000 153 69.0 15 9 1 39.1 1
  7/22/11 0:02 75.6 75.6 75.6 69 64.7 2.0 WNW 0.03
3.0 WNW 75.6 77.3 77.3 75.1 1009.5 0.00 0.00 0 0.00
0 0.0 0.00 0.0 0.000 0.007 79.5 47 57.5 79.3 8.66
.0722 0.000 153 69.0 15 20 1 87.0 1
  7/22/11 0:03 75.6 75.6 75.6 69 64.7 1.0 WNW 0.02
2.0 WNW 75.6 77.3 77.3 75.1 1009.5 0.00 0.00 0 0.00
0 0.0 0.00 0.0 0.000 0.007 79.5 47 57.5 79.3 8.66
.0722 0.000 153 69.0 15 22 1 95.7 1
  7/22/11 0:04 75.6 75.6 75.6 69 64.7 1.0 WNW 0.02
3.0 WNW 75.6 77.3 77.3 75.1 1009.5 0.00 0.00 0 0.00
0 0.0 0.00 0.0 0.000 0.007 79.5 48 58.1 79.4 8.86
.0721 0.000 153 69.0 15 21 1 91.3 1
  7/22/11 0:05 75.6 75.6 75.6 69 64.7 1.0 WNW 0.02
3.0 WNW 75.6 77.3 77.3 75.1 1009.5 0.00 0.00 0 0.00
0 0.0 0.00 0.0 0.000 0.007 79.5 48 58.1 79.4 8.86
.0721 0.000 153 69.0 15 21 1 91.3 1

#10

Hi :slight_smile:
I had a go at using "Fixed width" but then needed to define each width in the
little box at the bottom which was uncomfortably small on my screen at my
resolution. Later on i tried it again and it had remembered the widths i had
defined last time. Sadly i could not find the fixed width thing in Base.
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#11

Did you not have the checkbox checked for "merge delimiters"?
Joe Conner, Poulsbo, WA USA

#12

OOOOooooh. I did NOT. I'll have to look for that. It will save me some work.
Thanks
David

#13

As I said, I did not, and had not seen the message on this that suggests that ... but I just tried it-- it works like a charm. Thanks.
--David

#14

Am 27.07.2011 14:09, Tom Davies wrote:

Hi :slight_smile:
I had a go at using "Fixed width" but then needed to define each width in the
little box at the bottom which was uncomfortably small on my screen at my
resolution. Later on i tried it again and it had remembered the widths i had
defined last time. Sadly i could not find the fixed width thing in Base.
Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

In Base a query with function SUBSTR can split the lines of text.

#15

Am 25.07.2011 15:32, Tom Davies wrote:

Hi :slight_smile:
I think i would approach this by using a database program rather than importing
into a spreadsheet program. A database program such as Base should be able to
read the text-files directly. Queries, Forms and Reports can be set-up to do
the required calculations.

Right, a Base makes text import into office documents easy. You can specify the delimiters and everything once for ever and use the resulting database connection in all documents.
There are 2 ways. One uses Base for trivial read-only access to a whole directory of csv files.
The second method is less trivial and utilizes the built-in HSQLDB (or some other connected database server) to bind one particular text file to one particular database table for full database access.

Example with 5 files demonstrating several use cases with HSQLDB, Base and Calc: http://user.services.openoffice.org/en/forum/viewtopic.php?f=100&t=23727