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All Forums >> [New Releases from Matrix Games] >> War in the Pacific: Admiral's Edition >> Scenario Design and Modding >> witploadae woes

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witploadae woes - 7/25/2011 9:17:06 AM

LargeSlowTarget

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From: The deepest, darkest pit of hell
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Hello fellow modders, I'm afraid I need your help...

I want to copy my personal mod stuff into DaBabes v07, but I'm having trouble with the witploadae.

Dumping the scen files into .cvs and loading the .cvs back into scen files went well, according to the witploadae messages ("All files have been dumped/loaded successfully")

But when opening the modded scen files with the editor, no new data is visible...

Here is what I have done:

1. Created a folder "WITP-LOAD" on C: as mod folder

2. Copied witploadae.exe from AE Scen folder to mod folder

3. Copied scen files of Scen 029 (DaBabes v7) and Scen 040 (my mod) to mod folder (including AI files)

4. Dumped both scenarios in mod folder with witploadae into .cvs files using dos command "witploadae /e /sxxx"

5. Opened the ships class .csv files of both scenarios in Excel 2007 and copied the ship classes I have created from WITPcls040.csv to WITPcls029.csv

WITPcls029.csv now looks like this:
2775,"BCCS Alice",80,17,14,38,1530,216,3...
2776,"",0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,...
2777,"Ketch",81,8,6,18,3000,12,1,12,0,0,0,...
2778,"Schooner",81,8,6,16,4000,12,2,12,0,0,...
2779,"Trawler, small",81,10,8,32,1600,12,2,...
2780,"Trawler, large",81,10,8,30,2000,50,3...
2781,"Pamir",82,12,8,8,15000,500,4,12,0,0,...
etc.

6. Try to save WITPcls029.csv > Excel pop-up informs me that WITPcls029.csv may contain "features" (don't know the term used by English Windows, on my German version it says "Merkmale" which translated into features, objects, traits etc.) which are NOT compatible with CSV

7. Excel asks "Do you want to save anyway?" Options: "Yes" or "No, save as..." - latter option gives three different types of .csv files: "MacIntosh", "MS-DOS" and "delimiter" ("Trennzeichen-getrennt" in German Windows)

8. First saved with "Yes", then loaded the Scen files with witpload ae "successfully" as Scen 029 in the folder "WITP-LOAD"

9. Opened Scen 029 from the folder "WITP-LOAD" in the editor > no new ships in the editor

10. Saved WITPcls029.csv as .csv (MS-DOS) and loaded scen files > no new ships in the editor

11. Repeat with WITPcls029.csv saved as .csv (delimiter) > no new ships in editor

I'm quite sure that I have used the right folders and files in witpload and the editor, so the problem must be the compatibility issue when saving the .csv files - but I cannot figure out what's wrong...

_____________________________

Carpe Cerevisiam

WitP AAR "Six Years of War"

Post #: 1

RE: witploadae woes - 7/25/2011 3:19:21 PM

JWE

Posts: 6576
Joined: 7/19/2005
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There is a default path wired into the program (C:\Matrix Games\War in the Pacific Admiral's Edition\SCEN) and unless you use the /d option (path to the scenario files directory) for all operations things can get lost in the shuffle.

I have a way of working this; may not be your cuppa, but it works for me, and here it is.

<Rename> the game�s SCEN folder to SCEN M (for Matrix

);
<Create> new blank folder named SCEN;
<Copy> WitploadAE.exe into the new SCEN folder;
<Copy> the desired scenarios into the new SCEN folder;
.. this puts both the witploadAE program and the scenarios into what the program thinks is the default folder ..

Launch Command Prompt;
<Type> cd\matrix games\war in the pacific admiral's edition\scen
<Type> WitploadAE /sxxx /e
Check folder to make sure it got exported ok.
Do it again for the other scenario.
Do the cut and paste magic.
<Type> WitploadAE /sxxx /i

When you check with the editor, make sure the editor is looking in the right directory path and folder. The editor will stay in the last folder you were accessing the last time you edited, so good to make sure it really is where you think it is. After you are finished, be sure to copy the modified scenario back to its home. Then you can rename SCEN to SCEN W (for Witpload) and rename SCEN M to SCEN, and you should be good to go. The first part then changes, of course, it�s;
<Rename> the SCEN folder to SCEN M;
<Rename> the SCEN W folder to SCEN;

I do a lot of this with batch files, and do it darn near all the time. Never had a problem. Still wierded out? Shoot me a pm. I�ll try and help figure out what�s going on.

Ciao. J

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(in reply to LargeSlowTarget)

Post #: 2

RE: witploadae woes - 7/25/2011 6:14:59 PM

LargeSlowTarget

Posts: 2529
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From: The deepest, darkest pit of hell
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Thanks JWE, I'll give it a try and report back asap.

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WitP AAR "Six Years of War"

(in reply to JWE)

Post #: 3

RE: witploadae woes - 7/26/2011 3:44:16 PM

LargeSlowTarget

Posts: 2529
Joined: 9/23/2000
From: The deepest, darkest pit of hell
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No joy...

Have created the folder C:\Matrix Games\War in the Pacific Admiral's Edition\SCEN and have put all the necessary files into it.

Double-checked I'm using the correct folders with witploadae and the editor and all.

Still get the Excel prompt when saving claiming that there is a CSV compatibility issue.

When saving and reopening the .csv, everything looks ok.

Loading the .csv files into the scenario file is "succesfull" - but the data changes are not showing up in the editor.

Tried on computers at home and at *harrumph* work.

I will install OpenOffice and try again.

_____________________________

Carpe Cerevisiam

WitP AAR "Six Years of War"

(in reply to LargeSlowTarget)

Post #: 4

RE: witploadae woes - 7/26/2011 4:34:34 PM

JWE

Posts: 6576
Joined: 7/19/2005
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quote:

ORIGINAL: LargeSlowTarget
No joy...

Don't know what to say. That is very very curious.

Send me the two Class files you are using, and the range of slot numbers you want to copy from yours and paste into the other. I'll do it and send you a verified Class file with the changes. I'll also log all the steps so you can see exactly how it was done. Just put the two into a zip file, along with a description of what ya want and shoot me a pm.

btw, there really isn't a compatibility issue, so just click 'yes'.

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Post #: 5

RE: witploadae woes - 7/26/2011 4:48:49 PM

witpqs

Posts: 12401
Joined: 10/4/2004
From: Argleton
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This is kind of a shot in the dark.

I noticed one small quirk with CSV files when I was exporting from Tracker then importing into a spreadsheet to edit and so on.

If the text field delimiter also appears inside one of the fields, then the import of the CSV into the spreadsheet will go badly. If you don't notice that, then obviously the subsequent CSV will be corrupted and will not go into witploadae correctly.

The particular problem that I saw was this: The default delimiter for text fields is the " (double quote) character. Some device fields seem to use this character as the abbreviation for inches, while other use in, as in (made up examples):

6" Mk27 <-- this one caused a problem because it got written as "6" Mk27" and the spreadsheet thought that the

versus

6in Mk27

Now the first one caused a problem because it got written as "6" Mk27" and the spreadsheet thought that the 6 was the whole text for the field, and the rest was treated as a different field.

In my case it showed up in the Tracker CSV in the column where the cause of a ship sinking is listed. Obviously it got that from the save game, which got it from the scenario files, which is why I presume some device files have the " character.

Now some people will not see this problem depending upon what format CSV file they are using. The point is to have a look at the actual CSV file you create and see if it looks OK. In my case I just used Emacs to clean it up.

< Message edited by witpqs -- 7/26/2011 4:49:11 PM >

(in reply to JWE)

Post #: 6

RE: witploadae woes - 7/28/2011 5:18:43 PM

LargeSlowTarget

Posts: 2529
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From: The deepest, darkest pit of hell
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JWE, thanks for your kind offer - most appreciated.

However, I have little time at the moment because I'm preparing to leave for vacation with wife&kids (but without computer...

).

I'll get in touch with you when I'm back.

_____________________________

Carpe Cerevisiam

WitP AAR "Six Years of War"

(in reply to witpqs)

Post #: 7

RE: witploadae woes - 7/29/2011 8:36:54 AM

Reg

Posts: 2099
Joined: 5/26/2000
From: Victoria, Australia
Status: online

quote:

ORIGINAL: witpqs

This is kind of a shot in the dark.

I noticed one small quirk with CSV files when I was exporting from Tracker then importing into a spreadsheet to edit and so on.

If the text field delimiter also appears inside one of the fields, then the import of the CSV into the spreadsheet will go badly. If you don't notice that, then obviously the subsequent CSV will be corrupted and will not go into witploadae correctly.

The particular problem that I saw was this: The default delimiter for text fields is the " (double quote) character. Some device fields seem to use this character as the abbreviation for inches, while other use in, as in (made up examples):

6" Mk27 <-- this one caused a problem because it got written as "6" Mk27" and the spreadsheet thought that the

versus

6in Mk27

Now the first one caused a problem because it got written as "6" Mk27" and the spreadsheet thought that the 6 was the whole text for the field, and the rest was treated as a different field.

In my case it showed up in the Tracker CSV in the column where the cause of a ship sinking is listed. Obviously it got that from the save game, which got it from the scenario files, which is why I presume some device files have the " character.

Now some people will not see this problem depending upon what format CSV file they are using. The point is to have a look at the actual CSV file you create and see if it looks OK. In my case I just used Emacs to clean it up.

Yep, found that issue when I was doing my graphics display utility which gets its raw data from witploadae. I ended having to parse out all the delimiters and characters that MSDOS scripts were having difficulty with. For example I had to substitute [ ] in place of ( ) as well. (MSDOS scripts can do it...)

_____________________________

Cheers,
Reg.

(One day I will learn to spell - or check before posting....)
Uh oh, Firefox has introduced a spell checker!! What excuse can I use now!!!

(in reply to witpqs)

Post #: 8

RE: witploadae woes - 7/29/2011 5:19:48 PM

JWE

Posts: 6576
Joined: 7/19/2005
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: Reg
Yep, found that issue when I was doing my graphics display utility which gets its raw data from witploadae. I ended having to parse out all the delimiters and characters that MSDOS scripts were having difficulty with. For example I had to substitute [ ] in place of ( ) as well. (MSDOS scripts can do it...)

Jeez Louize, Reg; Ya know, there ain't too many of us left that can speak DOS. Sure am glad that you can, and appreciate everything you do. Anything I can do to help, please feel free to just ask.

btw, some wierd, aditional, stuff coming out of savegames on or after 1108p4. Some AEaster Egg testing going on. Please send pm, will describe whazzup.

Ciao. John

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Home of DaBabes

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Post #: 9

RE: witploadae woes - 7/30/2011 12:13:47 AM

Alfred

Posts: 3281
Joined: 9/28/2006
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: JWE

quote:

ORIGINAL: Reg
Yep, found that issue when I was doing my graphics display utility which gets its raw data from witploadae. I ended having to parse out all the delimiters and characters that MSDOS scripts were having difficulty with. For example I had to substitute [ ] in place of ( ) as well. (MSDOS scripts can do it...)

Jeez Louize, Reg; Ya know, there ain't too many of us left that can speak DOS. Sure am glad that you can, and appreciate everything you do. Anything I can do to help, please feel free to just ask.

btw, some wierd, aditional, stuff coming out of savegames on or after 1108p4. Some AEaster Egg testing going on. Please send pm, will describe whazzup.

Ciao. John

I still think DOS 5.0 was a good system and far superior to the early Windows iterations.

Alfred

(in reply to JWE)

Post #: 10

RE: witploadae woes - 9/22/2011 2:13:52 PM

LargeSlowTarget

Posts: 2529
Joined: 9/23/2000
From: The deepest, darkest pit of hell
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Ok, after holidays and catching up on the backlog at work, I have given it another try with DBB_v9.

I have found a tool called "Synkronizer" which compares different versions of Excel files and highlights data changes between "master file" and "comparison file" in different colors.

Using the default path C:\Matrix Games\War in the Pacific Admiral's Edition\SCEN as mod folder, I have exported Scen 029 and my mod Scen 040 with witploadae /s0xx /e - no problems here.

Opening the .cvs files, I changed the data format which reads 2775,"BCCS Alice",80,17,14,38,1530,216,3... into a table with columns for each value and started comparing the corresponding pairs of .cvs files (i.e. WITPcls029 with WITPcls040 etc.) with Synkronizer.

With the higlighted data changes thanks to Synkronizer, it was easy to identify and copy&paste my stuff into the Scen 029 .cvs files.

I also checked the data for the issue witpqs has mentioned with " and changed all device names with " denoting inches to in (6in instead of 6" etc.).

In this context I noticed that in the leaders file, the leaders with nicknames in "" (Austin, B.L "Count" etc.) had not been converted properly to columns, they were still in the "Austin, B.L "Count"",80,17,14,38,1530,216,... format.

To avoid problems, I have deleted all nicknames in my mod and converted the file once more into proper columns.

When saving the files, I still have the "features not compatible" issue reported in my first post - but I was told this is not important.

Then I imported the finished Scen 029 files with witploadae /s029 /i� - witploadae reported all files have been loaded successfully.

But - opening the scen files in the editor, no data changes were visible - I was looking at DBB scen 029 and nothing I have copied from my mod was there.

Checking the date stamps of the scenario files (wpp029.dat, wpl029.dat etc.) I discovered, that they still show the date and time of the export of the scenario files, except the file wps029.dat which in fact shows the time stamp of the import.

So it looks like the import of most the .cvs files into the scenario files FAILED for some mysterious reason.

Then I tried to import the .cvs files into a fresh batch of scenario files (instead of asking witploadae to overwrite the existing scen 029 files).

I changed the names of the .cvs files from WITPcls029 etc. to WITPcls050 etc. and ran the witploadae import.

Witploadae reported the creation of empty scenario files and the "loading" of those files (with the scen data), ending with "all files have been loaded successfully".

I now had a batch of scenario files for scenario 50 with fresh time stamps and file sizes matching excactly the sizes of the corresponding files of the other scenarios (stock, DBB).

A short moment of hope - premature...

When opening the scen 50 files in the editor, I discovered that all tabs (devices, ship classes etc.) do NOT contain any data - nothing, nada, nichts, rien - they are all empty!

I don't understand - the file sizes of the scen 50 files do match the size of the other scenarios, but there is nothing in there?!?

Lord, if I have to enter my changes one by one into the DBB files via the editor I'll grow old - and before I have finished, there will be another DBB version and I'll have to start over...

< Message edited by LargeSlowTarget -- 9/22/2011 2:19:58 PM >

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Carpe Cerevisiam

WitP AAR "Six Years of War"

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Post #: 11

RE: witploadae woes - 9/22/2011 4:59:29 PM

witpqs

Posts: 12401
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From: Argleton
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Total shot in the dark here: In the Beta a new witploadAE has been released (to have compatibility with the additional fields added by JWE and MichaelM working together). The date on the file is 1/28/2011 and the version number in the readme.txt is 8.6.

Even if it doesn't fix the issue you are having it's probably worth starting there.

(in reply to LargeSlowTarget)

Post #: 12

RE: witploadae woes - 9/22/2011 5:18:06 PM

JWE

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Joined: 7/19/2005
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Bloody Woof !!!

I'm not an applications person, so take this with a large grain of salt. When all is said and done, the I/Os for AE need to be exactly and precisely I-1, I-2, I-3, ... I-z, with nothing intervening. People have written programs that extract game files to certain formats recognizable by a MS application. Cool, but that doesn't mean that those files are amenable to yet fourth party manipulation.

If there is anything, I mean anything, in the file that is odd, it will self destruct. There's a check sum thing, and an internal consistency check. If one stinking comma is out of place, or one single data field overuns its definition, the entire file is toast. Think of the game files as DOS, and not as Microsoft application friendly things. Slow and easy, step by step, and manual data entry.

C, J

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Post #: 13

RE: witploadae woes - 9/22/2011 8:37:41 PM

Skyland

Posts: 196
Joined: 2/8/2007
From: France
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Try the following :
Open your .csv file in the Notepad appli. Check if there is ";" or "," as delimiter.
If ";" then search and replace all by ",".
Save with the same name.
Import in wiptloadae.

_____________________________

War Options 1941 mod : https://sites.google.com/site/waroptionswitpaemod/

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Post #: 14

RE: witploadae woes - 9/24/2011 7:56:06 AM

inqistor

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Joined: 5/12/2010
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Heh, I completely forgot about this topic.

quote:

ORIGINAL: LargeSlowTarget
Checking the date stamps of the scenario files (wpp029.dat, wpl029.dat etc.) I discovered, that they still show the date and time of the export of the scenario files, except the file wps029.dat which in fact shows the time stamp of the import.

I had similar problem. This is because Excel tries to be "smart" (OK, I was actually using Open Office

).

When you open .cvs file in OOCalc, it asks you what type of character is used as field separator. Default use is TAB, you can check comma, and it seems to open right, but when you save the file, program will still use first available separator, in this case TAB.

To avoid it, you either need to check only comma, no other fields should be checked. You can also save first in program native format (.xls?), and then save again as .cvs, it should ask you what separator character you want to use.

It is easy to check. First open your unmodified .cvs file in Notepad. You will se no empty spaces between fields. Then open it AFTER changes. If you will see empty spaces, it used TABs, instead of comma.

(in reply to LargeSlowTarget)

Post #: 15

RE: witploadae woes - 9/26/2011 7:44:32 AM

LargeSlowTarget

Posts: 2529
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Thanks to all who have tried to help.

I'm not an Excel expert, but I think the problem is the conversion of comma-separated values to table-columns which wrecks the import, although both forms are saved as csv-files.

Don kindly has offered to take a closer look, but if I am beyond help so to say, I will use the original comma-separated export files to copy&paste the full lines of "my" entirely new bases and units into the DBB files and then re-do the changes to individual values of existing bases/units via the editor. Will take some time, but it's also an opportunity to re-think about the changes I have made and whether they really make sense...

< Message edited by LargeSlowTarget -- 9/26/2011 7:45:15 AM >

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Post #: 16

RE: witploadae woes - 9/26/2011 8:20:07 AM

Don Bowen

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From: Georgetown, Texas, USA
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Yup, Excel screwed the files. It did indeed change comma delimited to semi-colon delimited (which witploadae does not like). Something else was wrong, not sure what, but ran the csv files through import/export using Access and everything worked OK.

Don

(in reply to LargeSlowTarget)

Post #: 17

RE: witploadae woes - 9/26/2011 9:05:54 AM

LargeSlowTarget

Posts: 2529
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Thank you so much, Don!

Looks like I need to purchase Office 2010, my Excel version does not seem to have a save option where I can specify the separator character.

If anyone is interested in the scen files, shoot me a pm.

_____________________________

Carpe Cerevisiam

WitP AAR "Six Years of War"

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Post #: 18

RE: witploadae woes - 9/26/2011 5:42:43 PM

witpqs

Posts: 12401
Joined: 10/4/2004
From: Argleton
Status: offline

I use Open Office, soon switching to Libre Office as OO support is winding down (they are almost identical), both are free and produce the CSV files just fine. IIRC you get to say what delimiter you want.

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Post #: 19

RE: witploadae woes - 9/26/2011 5:47:28 PM

Don Bowen

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From: Georgetown, Texas, USA
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quote:

ORIGINAL: LargeSlowTarget

Thank you so much, Don!

Looks like I need to purchase Office 2010, my Excel version does not seem to have a save option where I can specify the separator character.

If anyone is interested in the scen files, shoot me a pm.

Not sure, but I think the option is there is earlier versions, just somewhere else. Microsoft always does it's best to hide such things.

(in reply to LargeSlowTarget)

Post #: 20

RE: witploadae woes - 9/26/2011 11:30:42 PM

Andrew Brown

Posts: 4874
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From: Hex 82,170
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quote:

ORIGINAL: Don Bowen

quote:

ORIGINAL: LargeSlowTarget

Thank you so much, Don!

Looks like I need to purchase Office 2010, my Excel version does not seem to have a save option where I can specify the separator character.

If anyone is interested in the scen files, shoot me a pm.

Not sure, but I think the option is there is earlier versions, just somewhere else. Microsoft always does it's best to hide such things.

I use Microsoft Office 2007 and have no problems with it. CSV files are always saved as just that - comma separated. I can have a look at the troublesome files as well, if it will help...

Andrew

(in reply to Don Bowen)

Post #: 21

RE: witploadae woes - 9/29/2011 7:53:16 PM

LargeSlowTarget

Posts: 2529
Joined: 9/23/2000
From: The deepest, darkest pit of hell
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Thank you all - the helpfulness of the fellow forumnites and the 'big shots' of the Team is outstanding and much appreciated.

Found a couple of errors in the fixed files - stuff I have forgotten to copy&paste - but I can do that with the editor.

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Post #: 22

RE: witploadae woes - 10/1/2011 9:57:18 AM

inqistor

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Joined: 5/12/2010
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quote:

ORIGINAL: LargeSlowTarget

Looks like I need to purchase Office 2010, my Excel version does not seem to have a save option where I can specify the separator character.

Or you can download OpenOffice. It is free, and takes, like 240 Mb.

(in reply to LargeSlowTarget)

Post #: 23