Conversion into Excel

[Pulcinella]

Does anyone know of a way (or free software) to convert tabulated text into Excel spreadsheet (hence sortable) style?

I have a link to the BBC MM CDs in my browser favourites, but the file is not searchable (or if it is, I don't know how to, on my iPad).
I've copied it into iBooks, which has a search facility of sorts, but it is not ideal.

What I'd really like is a spreadsheet that I can sort (initially) by composer, as I keep the CDs in issue order, and it's becoming increasingly annoying to have to scan the shelves for that elusive recording I know I have (not least as the spine information is often incomplete).

This is the file that someone kindly maintains:

https://www.knowledgewise.co.uk/music/bbcmm_cover_cds.pdf

All helpful comments gratefully received, but I am by no means expert at anything IT related, so the simpler the better, please!

[Frances_iom]

it should go in straight away - write out the file you wish to input as a xxx.tab name with all fields of each entry separated by tabs and the whole record terminated by newline - there are much better file systems than misusing excel but I've given such data to Manx Museum in this format tho they queried the .tab file suffix at first, when they tried it it worked fine. It does however require that tabs be only used as a separator and not as a typing aid to align columns. If you OCR the pdf file then make sure tabs are not duplicated to keep the spacings correct (easy approach is to repeatedly convert "tabtab" to "tab")

The somewhat better and more usual approach are what are known as csv files (suffix .csv) comma separated field each field within quotation marks - look them up.

I don't use any Apple stuff but on my Linux laptop, but if I just select the 1st character then with shift depressed move the mouse to last character to select all the text, then copy and paste into a text file it is rendered in columnar format ie all column 1 entries each on a new line then all column 2 etc - now easy cut and paste into the columns of an excel like file (use Libre Office - it's free!) - in practice I'd dump the file on my OCR program, indicate the columns and then convert to tab or csv file but you probably don't have such free convenient tools within the walled garden of Apple.

[cloughie]

Does anyone know of a way (or free software) to convert tabulated text into Excel spreadsheet (hence sortable) style?

I have a link to the BBC MM CDs in my browser favourites, but the file is not searchable (or if it is, I don't know how to, on my iPad).
I've copied it into iBooks, which has a search facility of sorts, but it is not ideal.

What I'd really like is a spreadsheet that I can sort (initially) by composer, as I keep the CDs in issue order, and it's becoming increasingly annoying to have to scan the shelves for that elusive recording I know I have (not least as the spine information is often incomplete).

This is the file that someone kindly maintains:

https://www.knowledgewise.co.uk/music/bbcmm_cover_cds.pdf

All helpful comments gratefully received, but I am by no means expert at anything IT related, so the simpler the better, please!

If you open up this link you will be given the option of opening as excel

https://www.knowledgewise.co.uk/music/

I then copied to a blank EXCEL sheet, added header, converted to text, and can now sort. PM me if you would like a copy of what I have done. Thanks also for the link - a good comprehensive list.

[Pulcinella]

Thanks, both, for responding so quickly.
I've sent you a PM, cloughie!
Thanks for YOUR link too: I didn't realise that there were other layouts/file options available!

[Dave2002]

I had a very quick go at this to see if it would "just go", but I have been using Excel on a Mac and I simply copied the text.
It didn't work. I feel sure I could get this done with a bit more time, but I was doing a quick check on feasibility. There are many ways which ought to be possible, such as using XSLT, but sledgehammers (pehapcs complicated ones) and nuts spring to mind.

If I have more time later on I may try again, though I really have too much to do right now. It really oughtn't to be too difficult, but finding the right trick go get the job done may take a while. As mentioned above, csv is perhaps the most common - (best?) - way to get this done.

[Pulcinella]

I had a very quick go at this to see if it would "just go", but I have been using Excel on a Mac and I simply copied the text.
It didn't work. I feel sure I could get this done with a bit more time, but I was doing a quick check on feasibility. There are many ways which ought to be possible, such as using XSLT, but sledgehammers (pehapcs complicated ones) and nuts spring to mind.

If I have more time later on I may try again, though I really have too much to do right now. It really oughtn't to be too difficult, but finding the right trick go get the job done may take a while. As mentioned above, csv is perhaps the most common - (best?) - way to get this done.

Dave
See cloughie's link: it already exists in Excel format.
So don't waste any more of your time.

[Dave2002]

See cloughie's link: it already exists in Excel format.
So don't waste any more of your time.

Thanks. Glad you’re happy with that.

I may still tinker out of curiosity, in case similar problems come up again, but you do seem to have a result.

I do this sort of thing from time to time, for example with online data from websites. Some financial sites don’t make the data available in a simple useful format, so sometimes stripping out of web pages and putting directly into spreadsheets works wonders.