Converting Tabular Data to something more columnar

[warhelmet]

First post - so hello people!

I've had some problems trying to convert tabular data back into "raw" data.

Best metaphor I can come up with is that some sent me the results of a pivot table that they'd done Copy, Paste Special, Values to and dumped the raw data (which is something I do with BIG files).

First attempts involved array formulas, concatenation, complex lookups, etc, but I ran into quite severe problems. VERY difficult to describe without showing the data, but I was attempting to iterate all possible combinations of text characteristics, then doing =sumif against the columns with values in to decompose the table to a flat list. But I ran out of rows. Erm, I need millions. Yup, multiple sheets, but even so, crazy file sizes. Data, Filter, Advanced can't quite do what I want either...

I eventually solved my problem by using Access to sort the data out, and using a query as the data source for a Pivot Table. Which is fine for me. But... For various reasons in my workplace this is an "unsupported" solution. Work gets crabby if I write VBA for Excel etc...

Does anyone have any suggestions/experience re this sort of thing?

peter

 

[Greg Truby]

If the pivot table is complex, this may not be quite enough, but at least it may give you some ideas.

HTH

 

[KenWright]

Where did the data come from? Was it originally from an Excel Pivot table with an Excel source, as if so then you shouldn't need any more space than excel has. I woulod have thought the biggest amount of space you should need is whatever they originally had as their source data.

Can you give us an example of your data using Colo's Htmlmaker download.