Referencing a text file for data instead of importing

[Boon8888]

Hi, not sure if this is the right place to post this, but hopefully
someone can help me out.

My problem is, I am trying to figure out a way to reference data in a
text file that has data with columns seperated by semicolons (, and
end of rows denoted by a space I think. Anyway, I have over a hundred
of these text files, and in the past have just imported the data into a
new spreadsheet in excel, but this is getting too big, and I am getting
too many sheets, and I'm not sure, but I dont want to reach the limit.


Is there a way to reference this data in the original text files from
excel so I dont have to import all the data into excel spreadsheets?

I'm not sure if this can even be done. My suspision in exploring excel
help and other resources is that it is not possible. If anyone has any
idea one way or the other, please let me know, so I can rule it out as
a possibility.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Guest]

You might convert the TEXT files to individual Excel files, rather than
bringing them all into one big Excel file. Then you could reference each of
those individual Excel files...........or maybe you don't even need the whole
TEXT files, and could capture only those data that you require into the big
file.............


Vaya con Dios,
Chuck, CABGx3

 

[Boon8888]

That's not a bad idea, I may just give that a shot. Thanks a lot for
the suggestion.

Joel

 

[Boon8888]

That's not a bad idea, I may just give that a shot. Thanks a lot fo
the suggestion.

Joe

 

[Guest]

Happy to help, and if your TEXT files are similar in construct, you might
even consider including some RangeNames to help in subsequent data retrieval.

Vaya con Dios,
Chuck, CABGx3

 

[Beege]

Boon,

If these are dynamic files, then you may want to do this:

Set up OBDC in Administrative Tools (WinXP)/Data Sources .... add Microsoft
Text Driver

Then you could (in XL) Data/Import External Data/New Database Query

Could be too complicated..., but if the files are dynamic, then maybe the
only way?

Beege

 

[Boon8888]

The files are not dynamic, but rather are just static raw data that
needs to be processed further in Excel to make comparisons, graphs etc.
Thanks for the suggestion though. Much appreciated.