Microsoft Excel (Windows / Mac)
If you have a recent version of Office installed on your computer (2007 onwards), all you need to do to convert TXT to Excel is to create a new workbook by starting the application and selecting the template Blank workbook from its home screen.
At this point, select the tab Data from the Excel toolbar, click on the button From text (located at the top left) and select the document in TXT format containing the information you want to add to the spreadsheet. In the window that opens, make sure there is a check mark next to the item Delimited, choose whether to import the data starting from the first row or from another row of the TXT document by setting a value of your choice in the appropriate text field and pressing the button NEXT.
Now you have to choose by which values to split the data within the cells of the workbook: by selecting tabulation, space, comma e semicolon all values separated with a comma or semicolon within the original document in the spreadsheet will be split into horizontal cells, while vertical cells will be split using the passage to the next line in the TXT file as a reference point. If there are other symbols by which you want to split the cells, put the check mark next to the item Other and specify the character to use as a divider in the adjacent text field.
Per finire, click on your button NEXT, choose whether to format the spreadsheet cells as text, date o general value and click on end to transfer all data from the TXT file to the Excel document. If you want to customize the decimal and thousands separators used by Excel to recognize the digits in the TXT file click on the button Advanced.
At the end of the import you can save your spreadsheet normally by clicking on the icon floppy disk located at the top left (or by selecting the item Save with name from the menu Fillet), by clicking on the icons Computer> Browse and choosing the folder to export the workbook to.
Numbers (Mac)
You have a Mac? Then most likely you have also installed Numbers, Apple's alternative to Excel. Well, know that you can use Numbers to transform a TXT file into Excel in a very simple way. All you have to do is start Numbers, drag the TXT file you want to transform into Excel on the application icon on the Dock bar and wait a few seconds for the file to be processed.
If dragging the TXT file onto the Numbers icon does not work, try opening the document "manually" by starting Numbers, selecting the item apri from the menu Fillet located at the top left and select the TXT file to convert to Excel.
LibreOffice (Windows / Mac / Linux)
If you don't have Microsoft Office installed on your computer, you can convert TXT to Excel also with LibreOffice o OpenOffice. What is it about? If you have never heard of them, LibreOffice and OpenOffice are two free and open source productivity suites that offer (almost) all the functions of Microsoft Office at no cost. They are both multi-platform, so they work with all the most popular operating systems on computers (Windows, macOS and Linux) and their interface is completely translated into cittàn. Both are very good, but I personally recommend LibreOffice which has more active development and a few more features.
To download LibreOffice on your computer, connect to its official website and click on the button Download version xx. If you are using a Mac, in addition to the program installation package, you must also download an cittàn translation package (not necessary on Windows), then also click on the button Translated user interface. When the download is complete, if you are using a Windows PC, open the file LibreOffice_xx_Win_x86.msi and complete the LibreOffice installation by clicking on first Run and then NEXT, NEXT, Install, Yes e end.
If you are using a Mac, open the dmg package that contains LibreOffice, drag the suite icon into the folder Applications macOS and start the latter by right clicking on its icon and selecting the item apri from the menu that appears (this is used to start LibreOffice even if it comes from a developer not certified by Apple, the operation must be performed only at the first start).
Next, close LibreOffice, open the dmg package of the language pack and start the installation of the translation package by right clicking on the icon LibreOffice Language Pack, selecting the item apri from the menu that appears and clicking on the button Install per due turn consecutive.
Well now you are ready to take action! Start then LibreOffice, create a new Spreadsheet Calc clicking on the appropriate item located in the left sidebar and select the item Insert Sheet from File from the menu Sheet.
At this point, select the TXT file from which to import the data, put the check mark next to the items Tabulation, Comma e Semicolon or Other to indicate the criteria by which to separate the values in the cells and click on OK twice in a row to complete the job.
In conclusion, you have to save the worksheet normally by clicking on the icon floppy disk located at the top left and select one of the Excel file formats as the output format: XLS o XLSX (although there is nothing to prevent the use of the OpenDocument ODS format).
If you need help installing LibreOffice on Windows and Mac OS X, find out how by reading my tutorial on how to open ODG files.
Google Drive (Online)
If you don't have Office on your PC and you don't want to waste time installing new programs, you can convert your TXT files into Excel sheets using Google Drive - Google's well-known cloud storage service that includes applications for online productivity.
To convert a TXT file to XLSX or ODS with Google Drive, connected to the home page of your Drive (you must log in with a Google account), click on the button New located in the left sidebar and select the item Google Sheets give the menu to compare.
On the page that opens (the spreadsheet), select the item Import from the menu Fillet which is located at the top left. Then select the tab Charge and drag the TXT document to convert to Excel into the browser window.
When upload is complete, choose whether or not to indicate a separator character to separate the values to be entered in the cells of the worksheet and click on the button Import to start the transformation of the TXT file into Excel.
Finally, go to the menu File> Download As of Google Drive (top left) and choose whether to export the document as an XLSX, ODS, or other file format of your choice. Easier than that ?!
How to convert TXT to Excel
