The Excel 2016 application, which is part of the Microsoft Office software suite, provides an import option that allows users to merge data from external sources into a single spreadsheet. When importing text data, Excel can handle data from TXT, CSV, or any other file format that uses a delimiter to separate columns and rows of information. Excel also allows you to select settings during the import process that allow you to choose each column format and character encoding format.
Steps 1:
Launch Excel 2016 on your PC and create a new spreadsheet document or open an existing file.
Steps 2:
Navigate to the tab of the spreadsheet where you want place the imported data. Also be sure that your cursor is highlighted on the first row and column where data should be placed.
Steps 3:
Go to the “Data” tab in the top ribbon bar and click the “From Text” button in the “Get External Data” section. This will open a pop-up window for you to browse to the location of the external text file.
Steps 4:
Find the external text file that you want to import and click the “Open” button. The “Text Import Wizard” window will open to guide you through the remaining steps of the import process.
Steps 5:
Use the “File origin” drop-down menu to choose the character encoding format for your imported text. This is especially useful if your data contains special characters or text in a non-English language.
Steps 6:
Check the box next to “My data has headers” if you want the first row of data to be treated as column headers.
Steps 7:
Click the “Next” button.
Steps 8:
Select the correct delimiter type. The most common options are tab delimiters and comma delimiters. Click “Next” to proceed.
Steps 9:
Click on each column in the preview window and choose the desired format from the radio buttons above.
Steps 10:
Click the “Finish” button to complete the import process.
The Microsoft knowledge base contains more information on the options available when importing or exporting text data with Excel 2016.
