How to convert a .dat file to excel?

L

la90292

I have an inventory .dat file that I need to convert to excel so that I can
import it.

Please advise how to perform this task?

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Best regards,
victor
 
B

Barbara Wiseman

Victor,
I depends how the file is laid out. As far as I know .dat can be used by
many types of program, and the resultant file will be different.
It may have commas or spaces between the text /data you want to put in to
different columns
You could open it with notepad to see what it looks like.

In excel File, open, in the type of file at the bottom select 'all files
*.*' find your file and click on it.
Depending on if your data is separated by characters (chose delimited) or
spaces (choose fixed width), click next
Select the delimiter and see the data preview, click next.
On the next step you can select the format of the data.
I think on one of the steps you can drag lines between the columns to change
them and double click on a line to delete it or double click to put one in.
I have just created a tiny example and it does not seem to do this.
You can go back to the previous steps to change a selection.

University of Illinois has a pdf on this which explains it all much better
than I can (and there are pictures)
http://www.dmi.uiuc.edu/excelimport.pdf


If you are still having problems post back with the structure of your dat
file, and the version of excel you are using.

Good luck, Barbara
 
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Convert .dat or .txt File in to Excel File

Proseed step by step as given following
  1. Dat file Open with Microsoft Office Excel
  2. Select Colums A from No. 1 to 50 or all
  3. Open Microsoft Office Excel Data Menu and Click on Tex to Columns…..
  4. Check “Convert Text to Column Wizard Step – 1 of 3" Select on Delimted
  5. “Convert Text to Column Wizard” Click on Next
  6. “Convert Text to Column Wizard” see Delimters --> Select Tab & Comma
  7. “Convert Text to Column Wizard” Click Next
  8. “Convert Text to Column Wizard” Click Finish
  9. See Dat file is now converted in to Microsoft Excel WorkBook
  10. Now Save Excel Work Book with a file name
Dear Victor, Hope your problem will solve.
Thanks
Adeeb Raza

For more details visit on following kink :-
[URL="http://www.areptone.com/vb6/datconvert.html"]http://www.areptone.com/vb6/datconvert.html[/URL]
http://www.areptone.com/modbus/areptone_cadel.zip
 
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Thank yor Raza and Barbara,
I have recovered old DAT files containing scientific data of experiments done in our lab many years ago.
The conventional conversion methods suggested here and in other forums do not succeed in opening these files in a readable manner.
Do you have any idea or a possible lead of how to "decode" these file?
I have uploaded a few examples here:
box.com/signup/collablink/d_718442311/7d5981203f796
Please let me know if the link doesn't work.
Thank you for your time and attention!
 

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