Importing a Table into Excel This guide will show you step by step how to copy a table into notepad, create a CSV file and then import it into Microsoft Excel. This is a very basic guide but will cover the majority of likely uses. For this example I have used a table from a PDF file to illustrate the process. First we must open the file or webpage with the table. This should be one in which we can select the text and copy and paste it elsewhere. Next we need to open a text editor. In this example I am using notepad, which is bundled with Windows. It is important to use a text editor that does not automatically impose its own formatting on a document. If you are not sure if your preferred text editor does this then I would recommend just using notepad. To open notepad click on the start menu, select run and enter the word notepad and click OK. Next we need to select the data from which we wish to create a table. Do this by using your mouse to position the cursor at the beginning of the data, click and hold the left mouse button, and then drag the cursor to the end of the data. It should highlight the relevant text.
*Note: In Adobe Acrobat you must select the Select button next to the hand icon located to the left in the toolbar at the top of the document. Next we copy and paste the data into notepad. This can be done in one of two ways: press ctrl+c or select copy in the Edit dropdown menu located in the upper left portion of the program. We then paste the data into notepad by bringing up the notepad program and either pressing ctrl+v or by selecting the paste option in the Edit dropdown menu at the top of the program. If done correctly all of the selected data will appear in notepad.
Our next step is to format the data. This is done primarily with quotation marks and commas. Commas tell Excel to put the data on either side into different cells. Quotation marks denote text that is to appear within a single cell of Excel and may be necessary if there are commas or other such objects within the relevant text that would otherwise suggest putting data in a different column or row in excel.
As you can see above, in this example I have put the table s title "Table 1: Core technology-innovating economies, 2002" and the footnote "Source: US Patent and Trademark Office, February 2003" into quotations because the commas in them would otherwise have told Excel to split the text into different cells. Next we must save our file with the extension.csv, which stands for Comma Separated Values. This is done by selecting Save As from the File drop down menu at the top of notepad and naming the file with.csv at the end. In the example below I have used Table 1.csv as the name for the file.
Now that we have created a CSV file we will open it using Microsoft Excel. First we must open Excel. Then we open the file that we have created. This is done by clicking on the open file icon in the toolbar at the top or by selecting Open file from the File dropdown menu. Next a window will open up that will allow us to select our file. Browsing to the location to which you have saved the file you may notice that it is not showing up. It may be necessary to select a different file type from the dropdown menu below the File Name: field. You may select either Text Files or All Files to make the CSV file show. In the below example I have used Text Files as the file type. As you can see, it made Table 1 show up as available.
Now you should see a very crowded table appear in Excel. You may want to clean this up a bit. First we want to format the cells so that the text inside of them will wrap around instead of going off to the side where we cannot read it. This is done by first selecting all of the cells you want to change, which can be done by clicking on a cell in one corner of the table, holding down the button and then dragging your cursor to the corner at the horizontally opposite end of the table. All cells should be highlighted if this is done correctly. Next we click on the Format dropdown menu at the top of the program and select Cells This will open a dialogue window that gives us a few options. We want to put a check in the box that says Wrap text. Then click on OK.
Now our table will have some of the larger words wrapping around in the cells. You ll notice that some cells have grown vertically to accommodate this. In particular the title and footnote cells have become particularly tall and awkward. We may want to stretch these along the length of the table to make them look nicer. To do this we select the cells that contain the text and the cells to the right of them into which we would like to extend by clicking on the target cell, holding down the left mouse button and dragging the cursor over to the last cell into which we want to extend. Then we open up the cell formatting dialogue again by clicking on the Format dropdown menu at the top of the program and selecting Cells This time we will put a check in the box next to Merge cells and, again, click OK. It is important to note that the contents in the neighboring cells into which we are expanding will be deleted. If there is something in those cells that you do not want to be deleted then you should move them to another part of the table. In this case, though, the cells are empty anyway, so there is no worry.
Now we have a table that looks much like the original but is formatted in a way that we can use it in Excel without problems.
All that is left is to save it. Instead of saving it as a CSV file we may want to save it as an excel file. To do this, choose Save As from the File dropdown menu at the top of the program. Then select Microsoft Office Excel Workbook from the Save as Type dropdown menu. Now click on the Save button and it will save the file for use in Excel.