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Original poster

Any excel wiz here? Urgent

34 replies

Anudawan · 13/03/2025 12:24

Sorry posting for traffic.

ive got a huge task of moving over 2000 inputs from one file to another, they have variable in puts, and the two file table designs do not match one another.

tell me there is another way than having to literally type out over 2000 lines of data?

OP posts:
New posts on this thread. Refresh page
Lougle · 18/03/2025 22:06

Anudawan · 18/03/2025 21:27

To revive this thread slightly. Can anyone recommend any free/ low cost excel courses I could go on?

I have no idea how good it would be, but I've googled and seen this Udemy Course is £14.99 https://www.udemy.com/share/101Wde/

Original poster
Anudawan · 18/03/2025 21:27

To revive this thread slightly. Can anyone recommend any free/ low cost excel courses I could go on?

OP posts:
LemonKitten · 13/03/2025 14:32

LoveSkaMusic · 13/03/2025 14:28

Oh and with my cybersecurity hat on, DO NOT UPLOAD COMPANY DATA TO CHATGPT!!

Oh absolutely - I meant ask chatgpt how to do what you want to do

Original poster
Anudawan · 13/03/2025 14:28

Ellbee83 · 13/03/2025 13:38

AI is your friend!
Use Chatgpt, or Copilot if you have access to it. If you've not used it before, you literally just type in what you want to do and it will give you a solution.
If the solution isn't quite what you need, keep adding more specific detail until it's drilled down to exactly what you want.

Will likely be faster, and more accurate, than waiting for MN responses 😉

I wanted to throw my phone at the wall after chat gpt I kept getting formula errors lol

OP posts:
LoveSkaMusic · 13/03/2025 14:28

Oh and with my cybersecurity hat on, DO NOT UPLOAD COMPANY DATA TO CHATGPT!!

LoveSkaMusic · 13/03/2025 14:26

Anudawan · 13/03/2025 12:41

The data is cut differently so for instance

and this is a hypothetical

source data says number of fish 1-7, 8-10 and 10+ but the desired field has it labelled as minimum amount of fish and then maximum amount of fish

Show quote history

ok so dealing with number of fish. You need to split the column where the hyphen is. If you can't split the column using the split column tool, then do something like this:

If you want to grab the first number, you could use something like:

=left(2, <number of fish cell>)

Then that would cover numbers 1 through 10 for fish. you'd pick up the hyphen for numbers of fish <10. Simply do a find and replace on that column to remove the hyphens.

Same for the upper limit. Use something like =right(2, <number of fish cell>).

Ellbee83 · 13/03/2025 13:38

AI is your friend!
Use Chatgpt, or Copilot if you have access to it. If you've not used it before, you literally just type in what you want to do and it will give you a solution.
If the solution isn't quite what you need, keep adding more specific detail until it's drilled down to exactly what you want.

Will likely be faster, and more accurate, than waiting for MN responses 😉

MostlyHappyMummy · 13/03/2025 13:36

Use power query from within excel
ask chatgpt for details of what to do

Nina1013 · 13/03/2025 13:33

Anudawan · 13/03/2025 13:12

Oh now I feel stupid

Show quote history

Not at all, power queries are the most complex thing you can really do on Excel. Hardly anyone who uses Excel can use them, which is why it was a bit of a silly suggestion. If you were at that level, you would not have needed to ask for help, you’d be the person everyone came to for help with their Excel issues.

reenon · 13/03/2025 13:22

Chat GPT, you can put the files in there and ask it to sort it out for you.

LemonKitten · 13/03/2025 13:14

Anudawan · 13/03/2025 12:24

Sorry posting for traffic.

ive got a huge task of moving over 2000 inputs from one file to another, they have variable in puts, and the two file table designs do not match one another.

tell me there is another way than having to literally type out over 2000 lines of data?

Ask ChatGPT how to do it

Original poster
Anudawan · 13/03/2025 13:12

Nina1013 · 13/03/2025 12:50

If you need to ask this question, you won’t be able to work with power queries!

The most basic thing is work column by column if one column is the same as another in terms of data content but called something else. Leave column headers in place, copy and paste data column by column underneath the new columns.

Show quote history

Oh now I feel stupid

OP posts:
Original poster
Anudawan · 13/03/2025 13:12

LaPalmaLlama · 13/03/2025 12:55

In which case you can probably use the if function to organise the data under the new headings.

Show quote history

That’s was my backup plan and then it should be easier to just copy across

OP posts:
Soulcurry · 13/03/2025 13:00

can you upload 2 dummy data files so we can give some tips?

wherearemypastnames · 13/03/2025 12:56

You could create a column that has all possible number of fishes

And then there is an if command to fill in the rows

So if( a1> 10, b3 ... )

Nesting if is a bit nasty but gets there

LaPalmaLlama · 13/03/2025 12:55

Rootsmaneouvring · 13/03/2025 12:48

So are you saying you want to take for example a row in one spreadsheet that has a column for number of fish and an entry of 8, and put that into a different spreadsheet which instead groups the number of fish into categories - so in this case you need to put it in the “5-10” category?

In which case you can probably use the if function to organise the data under the new headings.

wherearemypastnames · 13/03/2025 12:53

If there are no common fields then how do you propose to do it manually ?

Nina1013 · 13/03/2025 12:50

Anudawan · 13/03/2025 12:46

I don’t know how to do that?

Show quote history

If you need to ask this question, you won’t be able to work with power queries!

The most basic thing is work column by column if one column is the same as another in terms of data content but called something else. Leave column headers in place, copy and paste data column by column underneath the new columns.

Rootsmaneouvring · 13/03/2025 12:48

So are you saying you want to take for example a row in one spreadsheet that has a column for number of fish and an entry of 8, and put that into a different spreadsheet which instead groups the number of fish into categories - so in this case you need to put it in the “5-10” category?

Original poster
Anudawan · 13/03/2025 12:46

MathsFiend · 13/03/2025 12:42

Can you use Excel Power query to import tge data but assign new names to the column headers?

I don’t know how to do that?

OP posts:
Sugarfish · 13/03/2025 12:45

Ask chatgpt. That’s what I do for all my excel queries now

MathsFiend · 13/03/2025 12:42

Can you use Excel Power query to import tge data but assign new names to the column headers?

Original poster
Anudawan · 13/03/2025 12:41

NotSorry · 13/03/2025 12:32

Could you copy and paste each column in the correct place rather than rows?

The data is cut differently so for instance

and this is a hypothetical

source data says number of fish 1-7, 8-10 and 10+ but the desired field has it labelled as minimum amount of fish and then maximum amount of fish

OP posts:
Original poster
Anudawan · 13/03/2025 12:38

Tikeahulilly · 13/03/2025 12:31

Look ups or pivot tables can help you re organise data to them merge but really depends in what format the 2 data sets are in what the common fields are in

There are no common field names

OP posts:
Tikeahulilly · 13/03/2025 12:33

If the data needs to go from rows to columns you can copy paste transpose

Really hard to understand what u want to do and what it looks like.now