Unexpected quote marks in exports to tab-delimited files

[Guest]

I am experiencing a problem exporting data to a tab-delimited file. The
results of the export cause unexpected (and unwanted) double quotes to appear
(apparently) randomly throughout the file. They appear in certain cells - it
is replicable, and it's always the same cells - but there appears to be no
pattern.
This happens regardless of cell format (general v text), and only when
exported to a tab-delimited file and viewed from a text viewer such as
notepad.

Any help that can be provided is greatly appreciated. Thanks!

 

[Earl Kiosterud]

David,

Those aren't double quotes. They're single quotation marks around fields
that contain certain things. They're necessary for any program reading the
file, or your data will get jumbled. Read more at
http://www.smokeylake.com/excel/textfiles.htm. Read "Delimited Text File."

At that site is the Text Write Program which can write a text file without
the quotation marks, if you really need that. Be careful though.

 

[Guest]

Hi Earl,
Thanks for the input (no pun intended-lol), I wish it were that easy. These
are definitely double quotes and they only appear in certain cells, around
text. Several of us (none unfamiliar to tech support and/or programming) are
at a loss. We weere hoping there was some knowledge of a bug that might be
easily corrected. The problem is, this data haas to be imported into a
program that won't work properly with the quotes.
Thanks again for your help.

 

[JE McGimpsey]

Take a look here:

http://www.mcgimpsey.com/excel/textfiles.html

including the section on "Text files with no modification"

 

[Earl Kiosterud]

David,

What you're calling double-quotes are quotation marks. I recommend you read
that piece I pointed you to. If the program that will read the file
(including Excel) expects a normal comma-delimited text file, and they're
not there in those cells, you'll have problems.

Give an example of what got wrapped in quote marks, and what was in the
cell.

You can use that Text Write Program to write it without the quotes, if you
don't want to mess with macro code yourself. But keep an eye on the data
when that other program reads the file.