PC Doctor February 9, 2018

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Dear PC Doctor:

I have a Word document that I would really rather have as sortable Excel data. Is it possible to convert the file, or do I have to retype the whole thing?

Thank you,

Steve

Dear Steve:

I’m always glad when people ask these questions – I had never thought about this, so I had to learn!

It is possible to convert Word to Excel. First, open your Word file. From the File menu, choose Save As. Click the arrow next to Save as Type, and select Plain Text. Give your file a name and click Save. You will get a dialog box. Check the box next to Insert Line Breaks to give each line in your Word document its own row in the new Excel version. Click Ok.

Open Excel. In your new spreadsheet, click in the cell in which you want to start entering your information from the Word document. From the menu across the top of your Excel screen, choose Data, then From Text. Choose the plain text file you created from your Word document. Click Import. In the box that pops up, choose Delimited, and then click Next. If you click the box next to Space, each word will get its own cell within the new spreadsheet. Click Finish. Voila.

I hope this helps!
Until next time,
Happy Computing!

PC Doctor