Auto formatting .CSV import data

[BobW]

I'm a database programmer and I'm trying to parse out a sets of data to our
sales force. They are all pretty proficient in Excel and what I've been
able to do at this point is create a .CSV file, email it to them and they
can open the data without any problems. What I'd like to do for them, now,
is I'd like to somehow preformat the columns to different width and, if
possible, types of data. Can I do this with a template or is there some
kind of coding I can put directly in the .CSV data?

TIA
BobW

 

[Earl Kiosterud]

BobW,

CSV files don't have any formatting. Just pure data, separated by commas.
If your users have Excel and are proficient, why don't you send them an
Excel file?

 

[BobW]

I wish I could but the process I'm working with is from within a database
where it will generate a number of files then email those files to their
respective sales person. This could be done on a weekly, or daily,
frequency.

Okay, so no formatting commands enbedded in the CSV file. Darn. How about
some kind of template, or "shell" file that could automatically pull in data
from a CSV file? Something like that I could create and send with the CSV
file. But how would I get it to load the CSV data into the formatted
columns?

 

[Earl Kiosterud]

Bob,

So your database exports CSV. If it's OK to send an Excel file to the users
(to get the formatting you want), then you could set up a workbook the way
you want it (column widths, formatting, etc.), import the data from the CSV,
then send the Excel file(s) to the users. Then you could use the same copy
of the Excel workbook, refresh the data (when new data is available from the
database), and ship the new Excel file to the users. Ad infinitum. If
that's acceptable, post back for specifics on how to do it.

 

[BobW]

Hi Earl,

Something like this would be great. Key thing I'm wanting to avoid is the
need to manually interact with Excel on a continuing basis. If I could make
an empty spreadsheet (workbook?) that would automatically pull in the CSV
info after making sure the data rows are cleared then I could send this out
to the sales people once and just email updated CSV files from then on.
There is no need to keep old copies of the files but if a sales person
wanted to, they could do a SAVE-AS to whatever name they wanted.

I think this is pretty much what you've outlined except I want to automate
the refreshing of the data on the receipents end to avoid having to manually
process the files for every sales person, first. If I can do that, I can
fully automate, by a scheduled job, the updating of the information to our
sales staff.

Thanks! You've given me hope that I may be able to get this to work.