I am the first to admit that I hate Excel (well M/S products really but I am an IT bod and can see things in them that makes my blood boil).
Anyway tried for a while but could not get any sensible formatting out of the imported file. Far too many 'weird characters' in there as well as it being beyond my admittedly self-limited skills in Excel. Anyone who has had any joy with prepared to share ? Wiki it even ?
Full Version: Pm Archive For Excel
Are things like these the "weird" characters you're referring to, or is it something else?
CODE
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&
&# 33;
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&# 33;
yes. plus due to the varietiesin posts getting a text delimiter sorted between " and ' is err variable.Have rried Excel an Open Office calc (which seems a tad better). haveplayed with colun types etc. all the usual thrashing you would expect 
can't even get the post entries to show in a proper text box. I am crap that spreadsheets.
can't even get the post entries to show in a proper text box. I am crap that spreadsheets.
Either:
Use the HTML archive feature
or
If you can explain what you want to achieve with the Excel feature, maybe I/we can suggest a way to achieve your goal? Note that spreadsheets are NOT databases, so archiving to excel would NOT be my first choice
Use the HTML archive feature
or
If you can explain what you want to achieve with the Excel feature, maybe I/we can suggest a way to achieve your goal? Note that spreadsheets are NOT databases, so archiving to excel would NOT be my first choice
I'm not sure what the problem is that you're having with delimiters; if you're referring to field delimiters then I haven't seen a problem when trying the archive feature out.
As you've probably realised, the post content you get with the Excel export version is the HTML that posts are converted to before being sent to your browser, and includes all the HTML formatting tags and representations of special characters. If you need to extract the plain text within your worksheet automatically you could try searching for a suitable VBA macro to strip HTML tags, such as the one described here: http://forums.devx.com/showthread.php?t=158725.
As you've probably realised, the post content you get with the Excel export version is the HTML that posts are converted to before being sent to your browser, and includes all the HTML formatting tags and representations of special characters. If you need to extract the plain text within your worksheet automatically you could try searching for a suitable VBA macro to strip HTML tags, such as the one described here: http://forums.devx.com/showthread.php?t=158725.
thanks guys. was looking to be able to sort the archive into categories such as by poster and/or topic and/or date that is why I went the Excel route first.
I reckon my lack of Excel has much to do with it..
I reckon my lack of Excel has much to do with it..
So you'd need a vlookup, then sort as a pivot table?
don;t use a spreadsheet for what is inherently a database op 
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