WRITING AN EXCEL FILE FROM BASIC
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Question

WRITING AN EXCEL FILE FROM BASIC

JWB46 (Structural)

(OP)

20 Nov 02 12:57

Hi Guys.

I want to create files that can be read directly as EXCEL files from a BASIC program running under DOS.

What I do right now , for example, is as follows:

1000 OPEN "O",1,A$ + ".RYD"
1005 WRITE #1, "X", "Y", "Z"
1010 WRITE #1, P, Q, R
1015 CLOSE 1

This creates a file named A$.RYD with the data perfectly ok etc, but when trying to read it as an EXCEL file I have to do a bit of messing around to get the numbers to line up in cells properly.

It must be pretty simple to format the data to go directly into EXCEL.

Can anyone help please?

ardilesd (Chemical) · Answer 1 · 2002-11-20 13:18:10

From Basic, Save as an .XLS file and then read as Fixed Width

ivymike (Mechanical) · Answer 2 · 2002-11-20 13:38:25

you can write the file as a "comma separated value" file, or .csv. Excel will automatically read those. Try exporting one from excel for an example.

pmover (Mechanical) · Answer 3 · 2002-11-20 15:03:52

jwb46,

i gather u use the basic program to create the data needed by excel. the process is fine. excel will import the data; however, it helps if the source data (written by basic program) is a comma-seperated, semi-colon-seperated, or some other character seperated file. when excel reads in the data, it will automatically seperate the data into rows and columns.

for example,
basic file contains:

1234567890

excel will import (delimit) the data as one complete number.

whereas, the basic file contains:

1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,0

excel will import (auto delimit) the data into 10 columns, without having to resort to extra effort in seperating the data.

good luck.
-pmover

JWB46 (Structural) · Answer 4 · 2002-11-21 09:22:52

Thanks guys. Very helpful. I will experiment. Watch this space!
JWB46

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WRITING AN EXCEL FILE FROM BASIC
2