Writing Tab Delimited String to Delimited Spreadsheet

[daveTW]

I work on a german system, and the commas are used for decimal separation, the period is used for grouping numbers. And the list separator is a semicolon, so on my system it works perfektly to tell the "Array to Spreadsheet" to use the semicolon as a separator. Doubleclicking on the file opens it correct in Excel.

If your data itself includes semicolons, you have to wrap it in " so excel doesn't separate the data at wrong positions.

I find my settings via system control, region and language, in the first Tab (formats) the "More settings" button and then it looks like this:

[billko]

I think that if you put quotes around the strings, it will ignore the commas inside.

[Bob_Schor]

There seems to be a confusion between "Delimited Spreadsheets" (no specific extension) and Comma-separated-values (.csv) files.  Here are some observations/facts:

• Delimited files have fields separated by some character, usually <tab>, sometimes <comma>.
• Comma-separated-values files (default extension .csv) use commas as the separator (more-or-less "by definition").
• Excel can read Text files, both .txt and .csv.
• Excel "high-jacks" the .csv extension and creates an "Open with Excel" icon for it, so if you double-click it, Excel will open it (by default) and "do the right thing".
• A tab-delimited spreadsheet that does not have the .csv extension (saying, incorrectly, that commas are the separator) can be opened by Excel.  Excel will ask "Is this a delimited file", and if you say "Yes", will (by default) try using the Tab as the delimiter, and you will be Good to Go.

Moral -- if you want to use Delimited Spreadsheets, it is OK (and may even be preferable, particularly if your dates and numbers use commas) to stick with the default <tab> separator.  Give your file the extension .txt, which Excel will recognize as a "Text" file and will open as Tab-delimited, by default.  Do not give it the .csv extension, which forces Excel to try to use commas.

Bob Schor