Paste line breaks into Excel 2007

midwest_daniel · 04-13-2009, 04:53 PM

Excel 2007 differs from previous Excel versions in an important way: when I paste text (e.g. from Notepad) into Excel 2007, it all ends up on the same row, with all line breaks ignored.

The formula box shows a boxed question mark (?) where the line break should take place.

(Previous Excel versions behave such that pasting multi-line text into them would paste each line to its own Excel row. This is extremely helpful for programmers who need to make changes to the same part of many lines quickly by splitting lines across columns).

Transpose does not help in this case, since it keeps everything in either one axis or the other. A VBA macro is overkill.

How do I configure Excel 2007 defaults to act on line breaks during a Paste action?

**macropod** · 04-13-2009, 09:41 PM

Hi daniel,

How are the line breaks in Notepad created?

When I try this with a 'normal' Notepad file, the line breaks are respected by Excel - pasting into the formula bar puts all the text in one cell, with line breaks, pasting into the worksheet outputs each line to a new cell.

midwest_daniel · 04-14-2009, 04:44 PM

Macropod,

I am using regular Notepad as well. The Notepad line breaks are the standard 'carriage return/line feed' [Chr(13) Chr(10)] invisible characters, I assume. Whatever is generated from the natural use of the Enter key in Notepad.

[This is Notepad 5.1, in Windows XP SP3. My Excel 2007, Windows XP, and Notepad are all recent installs].

04-13-2009, 04:53 PM	#1 (permalink)
midwest_daniel Registered User Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Ohio Posts: 5 OS: XP	Paste line breaks into Excel 2007 Excel 2007 differs from previous Excel versions in an important way: when I paste text (e.g. from Notepad) into Excel 2007, it all ends up on the same row, with all line breaks ignored. The formula box shows a boxed question mark (?) where the line break should take place. (Previous Excel versions behave such that pasting multi-line text into them would paste each line to its own Excel row. This is extremely helpful for programmers who need to make changes to the same part of many lines quickly by splitting lines across columns). Transpose does not help in this case, since it keeps everything in either one axis or the other. A VBA macro is overkill. How do I configure Excel 2007 defaults to act on line breaks during a Paste action?

04-13-2009, 09:41 PM	#2 (permalink)
macropod TSF Enthusiast Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: Australia Posts: 559 OS: Vista	Re: Paste line breaks into Excel 2007 Hi daniel, How are the line breaks in Notepad created? When I try this with a 'normal' Notepad file, the line breaks are respected by Excel - pasting into the formula bar puts all the text in one cell, with line breaks, pasting into the worksheet outputs each line to a new cell. __________________ Cheers macropod (MS MVP -Word)

04-14-2009, 04:44 PM	#3 (permalink)
midwest_daniel Registered User Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Ohio Posts: 5 OS: XP	Re: Paste line breaks into Excel 2007 Macropod, I am using regular Notepad as well. The Notepad line breaks are the standard 'carriage return/line feed' [Chr(13) Chr(10)] invisible characters, I assume. Whatever is generated from the natural use of the Enter key in Notepad. [This is Notepad 5.1, in Windows XP SP3. My Excel 2007, Windows XP, and Notepad are all recent installs].