Is there any way to import data from an Excel Spreadsheet into a new SHEET?
Should be with simple text export and import. I did not do this from Excel which I do not use, but from other apps without problem.
Maria
Yes, indeed!
Save the Excel sheet (or a selected portion) as either a Tab-delimited (TSV) or Comma-delimited (CSV) text file.
In DT Pro, select File > Import > Files and Folders to import the text file.
Then select Data > Sheets > Edit Columns to edit the column headers.
Note: You can do simple calculations on Sheets by using DT Pro’s Scripts menu and selecting the desired option.
I’m new to DevonThink, so may be missing something obvious.
I converted an Excel spreadsheet to a tab-delimited file, then imported it into DT. It shows as a txt file now, but I have no idea how to view it as a sheet.
I’d also like to be able to import Word tables the same way, and view them as sheets as well.
Any help, suggestions, would be much appreciated.
If the extension of the tab-delimited is tab, tsv or csv, then the the file should be imported as a sheet.
Thanks Christian. I actually stumbled onto that conclusion just moments ago. Excel actually has an option to export as .csv, which is handy.
For the record, I also had success importing tables from Word, by…
• converting the table to text
• choosing Tabs as the separator
• deleting all non-table text remaining in the document
• saving as text, replacing .txt extesnion with .tdf extention
When imported into DT, these open as sheets.
Again, thanks for your quick reply.
Harold
Just another quick comment on importing.
It’s very important to remove all paragraph returns from tables or spreadsheet cells before converting to text (as specified in Word Help). Extraneous paragraph returns within the table scramble everything in the imported DT sheet.
Again, for the record, paragraph returns can be stripped out of a document by:
• choosing the Replace command from the Edit menu
• entering ^p in the Find What field and nothing in the Replace With field [the ^ character is just Shift-6]
Hope this helps any following in my wandering footsteps.
Harold
Harold,
could you send me an example? Maybe it’s a bug of DT Pro 1.0.2 and should be improved.
Christian,
I’d be happy to send you the Word file I was working on. I don’t think it’s a bug in DT, though. As I mentioned in the previous post, Word help specifies that all carriage returns have to be removed before saving a TDF file. I had placed many returns inside the table cells just to make the table look better. (Hmm, bad idea…)
Anyway, if you still want to see the file, please send me your email. I can’t see any way to attach documents within this forum.
Thanks,
Harold
Harold:
In DT Pro, select Help > Support. Attach your file in the email to Support. Include a brief summary of the issue. Note Christian’s request for the attachment.
Harold,
Word’s export is indeed quite useless - it does neither enclose the cells in quotes nor remove the line feeds/carriage returns automatically (like DT Pro does for example when exporting sheets).
Somewhat off topic, but related.
Can I inset a tab character within a table? I think I used OPT+Tab in word to do this; not so in DT.
BTW, I’m new to DT and love it. PC colleagues getting mighty jealous…
Probably only via copying and pasting a tab character (Option-Tab is used to navigate between views, Shift-Tab moves the cursor to the previous cell).
There is another way by modifying your key bindings. This is not for the faint-hearted but can bring very satisfying results (for example I enabled most emacs keybindings for all Cocoa apps this way). This way I enter Ctrl-q and then TAB should enter a TAB character wherever you want to insert text (in a Cocoa app only!).
See the following URL: Customizing the Cocoa Text System
kedves annard ( 
spent some time in Budapest)
I’ll look into your key bindings idea. getting into the unix underbelly’s not a problem, so it could work for me.
-a-