Help pasting Word table into Excel, please?

[Ed]

(Using Word and Excel XP) I have a table in Word with no merged cells. The
text in some cells, however, contain line or paragraph breaks. When copied
and pasted into Excel, these cells are always formatted as merged, with a
new cell at each line or paragraph break. Is there any way around this, so
a cell will copy as a single cell with the breaks in the text?

Ed

 

[Dave Peterson]

I don't see how merged cells comes into play....

But saved from a previous post:

If your cells in your word table contain paragraph mark or linebreak characters,
then excel will bring them over as separate cells.

One way around it is to convert those paragraph marks & linebreaks to unique
characters, then copy|paste and then convert them back to linefeeds.

I like this technique (inside a copy of the word file):
Select your table.
Edit|replace|Special (show More if required)
Find what: (paragraph mark under Special button)
replace with: $$$$$ (if $$$$$ doesn't appear in the table)
replace all

Same thing with Manual Line break (from under Special).

Now copy the table into Excel.

Edit|Replace
Replace what: $$$$$
Replace with: ctrl-j
replace all.

Don't forget to close the word document without saving (or hit undo as many
times as necessary).

 

[Ed]

Thanks for the tip, Dave. I misused "merged cells". Actually, as you said:

If your cells in your word table contain paragraph mark or linebreak
characters,
then excel will bring them over as separate cells.

It's the cells to the left and right that belong on the same row that get
copied over as merged cells.

Ed

 

[Dave Peterson]

If I split a cell in MSWord (table|split cells), then I could have a problem on
the excel side.

But if I never used that feature in word, excel didn't merge any cells for me.

Maybe right clicking in excel and pasting as text will will help you avoid the
merged cells.

 

[Ed]

Maybe right clicking in excel and pasting as text will help you avoid the

merged cells.

If I use "Paste as Text" from Word to Excel, Excel ignores cells merged in
the Word table.

I think your original response will resolve my issue. I'll probably put
that in a special macro to work around things. I appreciate the boost.

Ed

 

[Dave Peterson]

I've learned that splitting individual cells in an MSWord table is almost as bad
as merged cells in excel.

Maybe someone in the MSWord newsgroup will see your plight (if it is still a
plight <bg>) and offer a way around this.

Maybe right clicking in excel and pasting as text will help you avoid the
merged cells.

If I use "Paste as Text" from Word to Excel, Excel ignores cells merged in
the Word table.

I think your original response will resolve my issue. I'll probably put
that in a special macro to work around things. I appreciate the boost.

Ed