raw data conversion issue

[TwylaG]

I have some raw data in txt format that has an issue in that every second "character" is a space. I have no idea how that happened as it should be neat little columns of data. Is there a way I can remove the spaces when I import the data without removing *all* the spaces. Eg, a word or number appears C o l u m n 1 _______ $ 1 0 0 0 . 0 0_______ C o l u m n 3 etc (where the underscores are meant to represent more spaces, but when I typed them in here they got junked) and I don't want to lose the distinction between columns, just the gaps between characters.

 

[xenou]

It sounds to me like you might be importing unicode text (two bytes per character rather than one byte per character). Where's the text file coming from? How are you importing it?

 

[TwylaG]

The text file is coming from an AS400 and in text form its fine. However the file had since been archived to Google drive/docs & when we had to go back a ways and look at or download older files, they have all these spaces in now.

 

[xenou]

How's it being imported? Looks don't matter - it's entirely possible for Google to convert the files to unicode when they are archived. If you can, download Notepad++ (it's free) and inspect the file format (it will display in the bottom right corner).

Or another quick test would be to open the file with Notepad (the ordinary rinky dinky Windows version) and do a File | Save As being sure to choose ANSI encoding.

 

[TwylaG]

It is UTF-8 encoding.
I swapped it to ANSI so now have a copy of both.

 

[TwylaG]

here is the first line, which is all text before the columning starts that I have been playing with using all sorts of Trim variations. Nothing is much working; though Trim is removing some of the spaces, not the ones between the letters. I am testing right now if copying and pasting into php (this is a php forum, right? - its been too long since I was in the loop) and then out of php will do anything to the text so that Trim will work.
? S L E 0 0 2 - 1 0 2 / 0 1 / 2 0 1 3 0 9 : 4 8 : 1 4 S U B - L E D G E R - O U T S T A N D I N G P A G E 1

 

[TwylaG]

Solved. It did work best to use notepad++ prior to importing it to excel. Thanks.