Excel = MS Word, Text Functions?, Edit | Fill | Justify??

[Jrew23]

Hello,

I posted a question at excel.misc regarding using excel as a word
processor.

http://groups-beta.google.com/group..._frm/thread/790757e9a328eee3/9002ea974dde7cc1

I was attempting to use text functions (trim, mid, etc. ) to "wrap"
text as it would in MS Word. And Myrna brought to my attention that I
could use edit | fill | justify option to somewhat accomplish what I'm
trying to do.

Is there another alternative using macros?

 

[JE McGimpsey]

There's almost always an alternative using macros.

Whether it's an alternative that makes sense to do depends on what
exactly you're trying to do.

On the face of it, trying to use XL as a word processor is rather a
waste of most developers' time. There's already an Office application to
do word processing. Far easier to pass the XL data to Word for output
than to try to recreate Word's functionality in XL.

 

[CLR]

Not a text wrap alternative, but if you haven't run across it yet, something
interesting for massaging text in XL is the feature

Format > Cells > Alignment > Center Across Selection

Vaya con Dios,
Chuck, CABGx3

 

[Jrew23]

What I'm trying to do is be able to copy text from word and paste it
into excel. For instance, if 3 paragraphs in word (3 "hard code
enters") were copied and pasted into excel it would show up in three
cells.

In the past I've just used the "text wrap" feature in excel, but I've
found when text in a cell goes over a certain number of characters, the
autofit feature doesn't work perfectly. Also I don't think you can have
line spacing using text wrap (eg only single line spacing).

I figure if I can somehow find a way to manipulate the character
strings by limiting the amount of words/characters in each row (by
using "advanced!" text functions); and then resize the height of the
rows I could accomplish "double spacing!".

The reason why I'm attempting to use excel as a word processor is
because my company creates surveys in excel, and we provide background
information/ instructions within our workbooks. And when we don't use
excel's text wrap feature, and instead hit "hard code enters" where
need be, it turns into a nightmare if new content is added between
rows. Am i making sense?

 

[Max]

.. we provide background information/ instructions

within our workbooks ..

Just a thought .. I might use text boxes for accompanying descriptive text
within Excel. The text boxes could be sized to fit to grid (hold down Alt
key while drawing) and dressed up to "seamlessly" fit neatly say, below a
table (i.e. formatted with no line color). This way avoids having to deal
with in-cell text constraints.

 

[Arawn]

A given cell will hold 32,767 characters, BUT will only display & print
1024 of them. If you exceed the 1024, autofit does odd things. Not
sure if this helps, but it may keep you from banging your head against
the wall when it simply *cant* be done.

 

[Dave Peterson]

Actually, you can add a bunch of alt-enters to force new lines within the cell
and see/print lots more than 1024 characters.

 

[Arawn]

Yes, but a bit of a hassle if you're cutting & pasting from MS-Word,
especially in large volumes.

I suppose you could fix the problem programmatically, but I'm not sure
it'd be worth the time & hassle to do. I've written a line-by-line
Text to Excel importer before, but more or less gave up on the idea of
having it be "perfect". LOL