Converting Excel to MS-Word Thread poster: Jonathan MacKerron
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I have several large Excel files (Excel 2000 is running on my computer) that I need to convert to MS-Word.
Does anyone know if this is possible, and if so, how?
Many thanks in advance,
J
| | | | | you can copy it as a table | Dec 12, 2007 |
i tried few options, and the only reasnable one is this:
you chose all the rows/columns in Excel that you need in Word->>"copy"->> go to a new Word file->>>"paste".
you'll get the table in word, but you might have to arrange it a little.
as far as i know that's the only way.
good luck
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do you then have to reformat in Word? - todah rabah
| | | | | it's just that somtimes | Dec 12, 2007 |
the table is too wide for the Word standard page, so you have to adjust it a little.
besides that, the table stays exactly the same as it was in Excel. Visually that is...you dont have all the Excel functions in Word.
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Tony M
France
Local time: 15:18
Member
French to English
+ ...
SITE LOCALIZER | Not QUITE...! | Dec 12, 2007 |
maayanst wrote:
the table is too wide for the Word standard page, ...
I resorted to spreading the Word document right across both my screens — mind-boggling, but workable (just!)
besides that, the table stays exactly the same as it was in Excel.
Actually, not quite! You need to be very careful here — I just came horribly unstuck, which caused me hours of extra work!
I had occasion to copy-&-paste 3 columns but some 2200 lines of XLS into a DOC — I actually in the end got better results using 'paste special > 'RTF formatted text', although I don't think that had anything to do with the problems I then encountered.
When I pasted the DOC back into the XLS, to my horror, I found it was misaligned in various places!
It turned out that what had happened was that merged cells in the XLS had turned into fused cells in the Word table, but they didn't go back the same, thus creating spurious extra lines in the XLS, which had to be meticulously stripped out to restore order.
Now I'm not sure at what point this all went wrong, but I have a feeling it may have been because of 'soft returns' included in the XLS cells getting converted into 'hard returns', which then created spurious extra cells in the Word table — and needless to say, the whole situation was exacerbated by having translated via Wordfast on the way!!
So I would urge caution, check the formatting of the XLS cells carefully first, and maybe do a trial run on a (representative) section first.
Certainly, when I first tried this (on a simpler XLS) going direct (i.e. not via RTF), the formatting was well preserved, within the constraints of the Word page size, of course.
And another word of caution: if the spreadsheet contains pull-down 'choice' boxes, that can cause chaos!
[Edited at 2007-12-12 18:19]
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Based on the little experience I've had with Excel conversion, it surely is fraught with problems. Am thinking of cutting my losses and translating it in Excel, despite the limitations.
| | | | | Use a proper CAT tool! | Dec 13, 2007 |
Jonathan MacKerron wrote:
Based on the little experience I've had with Excel conversion, it surely is fraught with problems. Am thinking of cutting my losses and translating it in Excel, despite the limitations.
Hi Jonathan,
I don't know which CAT tool (if any) you're using, but if you don't have any tool, I'd do like this:
Download Trados (free trial), and convert the excel sheet to TTX in Tageditor.
Download TTXpress.
Translate the TTX in Word.
Cleanup the TTX back to the XLS format.
This operation can also be done in other free/share/trialware CAT tools, just take your pick. There is nothing more annoying than just translating in Excel without any translation aid!
/Jan
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