Easy way to one-off import data with different decimal separator in Excel?

2

My OS's locale uses the comma as a decimal separator. However, once in a while I need to process data in Excel which is formatted with a point as decimal separator. Depending on the source of the data (i.e. in a file, or copy paste from a website), I either temporarily change the locale on my Windows 7 OS, or do a find&replace of comma's with points. The first solution is cumbersome, and the latter is not practical/possible if the file contains comma's in other fields.

So, is there any easy way (provided by Excel) to import data in Excel and specifying the decimal separator to be used for this particular import?

Rabarberski

Posted 2012-02-03T08:49:52.127

Reputation: 7 494

Answers

3

On the Data Ribbon under Get External Data the From Text will import text from csv and let you choose the delimiter.

Once set as a datasource if you get a new version of the text file you can overwrite the old one, refresh the data source and it's updated.

Jesse

Posted 2012-02-03T08:49:52.127

Reputation: 330

1The good thing is, it not only allows setting the delimiter, but also allows for setting the decimal separator (after clicking a few times 'next' and selecting an 'advanced' option). – Rabarberski – 2012-02-05T11:46:49.977