Apache OpenOffice (AOO) Bugzilla – Issue 51930
RFE: more flexible import mechanisms
Last modified: 2013-02-07 22:39:33 UTC
I would like to see more flexible import mechanisms for loading databases (and spreadsheets) from text files. These include: 1) the ability to specify a delimiter as being one OR MORE characters. Currently each single occurrence of a delimiter moves to the next field 2) the ability to use fixed column width import in the database 3) The ability to not import blank lines [The background for this is I was send a 12000 line ascii file to import. I couldn't use Calc, because the 12000 lines were more than 65536 rows (hence the thirdrequest), although the fixed column width in excel was just what I needed. Star Base does not have the ability to import fixed width (second request), so everything it saw a delimiter, it moved the data one more column to the right ... hence the first request. A fourth request is 4) the ability to specify "white space" (ie tab or space) as a delimiter (and have multiple ones treated as a single...)
It's been pointed out to me that "merge delimiters" is what I want - Great. I think a better name - "Merge consecutive delimiters" would have been clearer? I read "merge delimiters" as something to do with mail merge! So, please, 1) and 4) are invalid RFEs (apart from clearer text) For reference, Access (XP) has the ability to fix width import, and, modulo ignore blank records, was able to import the data I needed as fixed width columns. It was not able to use delimited columns as its import facility there was lacking.
Hi, I reassign this enhancement to the User Experience team for evaluating. Bye Marc