Excel 2016 - breaks existing functionality

[walvord]

I apologize for the vague title. I'm not sure what that functionality was called.

Previously to v2016, I could copy tabular data (fixed width, no delimiter) from a terminal and paste it into A1 of a given sheet. The data would paste in as 1 row per row and all in 1 column. I could then highlight column A and use text-to-columns to easily split it out by selecting fixed width and the typical next/next/finish wizard. However, it seems that this functionality either is disabled by default in v2016 or it was just removed.

I'm hoping someone could point me toward either what search term(s) I should be googling to find help or what settings I can change to return that pre-2016 functionality.

If I didn't explain it well enough, please feel free to ask additional questions.


thanks,
will

 

[Jon Peltier]

Excel 2016/365 works the same as ever here, as far as I can tell.

Whenever I use text to columns, I then select a cell with some contents, and go through the text to columns dialog again, choose delimited, uncheck all except the default (which is tabs), and click Enter. This resets text to columns, so next time I paste text, it puts it into one column without parsing by the previous settings.

 

[walvord]

Sandy...that was it. Not sure what happened. I save as .csv occasionally but never use text to columns using anything other than fixed width. Anyways, you saved the day! Many thanks.

 

[walvord]

Jon, I can appreciate that this is the way it's always worked, but as I mentioned to Sandy -- to my knowledge I've never ever used text to columns with any option other than fixed-width. I guess maybe this company laptop wasn't re-imaged before I got it or has the image includes an excel which was used with text to columns with delimiters.

In any case, it's resolved. Not sure what the benefit of having that kind of automagic data parsing decision is though to be honest. Maybe it saves people an extra click occasionally, but I wish there was a disable option for it. A technical tutorial reader I know used to say that 'if it says auto, you auto (ought to) not use it'.

 

[sandy666]

You are welcome.

MS knows better what you need (incapacitation)