Parsing Info in Cells

  • Thread starter Thread starter jayhawk1919
  • Start date Start date
J

jayhawk1919

Lets say I'm taking information from the internet, so I copy and past i
into Excel.

In one of the cells it says a number, then a dash, then a number.
Ex. 10-18

But I want them to behave independantly. So that theoretically,
could have one cell read 10 and another read 18. Or sometimes have i
read 10 divided by 18.

I'm pretty sure there's a way to do this, I just don't know how.

Thanks in Advance
 
Simplest way would be to convert text to columns from the Data menu,
using the dash as a delimiter.
 
I don't think that's 10 divided by 18. I think it's a date (Oct 18 of the
current year).

If you retrieve one cell at a time, you can format the cell as text and paste
into the formula bar. It'll still be in one cell, but then you can use
Data|Text to columns that Lloyd suggested.

Or you could use a couple of helper cells:
=LEFT(A1,FIND("/",A1)-1)
and
=MID(A1,FIND("/",A1)+1,255)

The first will return the 10 (as text)
and the second will return the 18 (as text).
 
Using the Text to column actually seems like it would work, so thanks.

However it seems I jumped too quickly. When I try and paste the table
in, it automatically converts the 10-18 to October 18th. How do I get
it to just leave it as 10-18, so I can make it a new column?
 
Hm?

I saw those replies. What I meant was that, they told me how to
seperate it into 2 colums if you have 10-18. And thats what I needed
to know...to a point.

Thats only useful if when I paste the 10-18 into excel it doesn't
automatically change it to 10/18/2003.

So I was wondering is there a way to stop it from flipping to the date
when I paste it in?
 
Ack, it still doesn't work. Seems that when you paste it overrides any
cell formatting you give it. And I can't put it into the forumula bar,
because its a more than one cell thing. In fact it's about 20x20 table
that I'm pasting, and one of the columns contains thouse "x-x" numbers,
like 5-15 or something. But it automatically changes it to a date no
matter what!


Is there a way in preferences or something to change it so that it
doesn't automatically change things to date when you paste?
 
Have you tried Edit> Paste Special after copying from the web page?

When I use this option (on Excel '97) after copying from a website, I get
the option to paste as text, unicode text or HTML format. If I select the
text option, I can then use Data> Text to Columns to break it up the way I
want it -- and it deals with ALL of it as text.

HTH,
Steve


jayhawk1919 said:
Hm?

I saw those replies. What I meant was that, they told me how to
seperate it into 2 colums if you have 10-18. And thats what I needed
to know...to a point.

Thats only useful if when I paste the 10-18 into excel it doesn't
automatically change it to 10/18/2003.

So I was wondering is there a way to stop it from flipping to the date
when I paste it in?


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