[Hidden-tech] Text Manipulation Problem

Shel Horowitz shel at principledprofit.com
Sat Oct 21 22:03:58 EDT 2017


If you want something less techie than Perl, try this, using Word's ability
to search-replace non-alphanumeric characters:


   1. Pop the text into Word. Save the file under another name in case you
   mess up.
   2. Using search-and-replace, change all instances of 01301 to 01301&^&^
   (or any other string that would not show up in the data file)
   3. change all (413)<space> to (413)<no space>
   4. Change all remaining spaces to commas
   5. Change all paragraph returns to commas put ^p into the Find box and
   make sure the p is lower-case)
   6. Change all &^&^ back to ^p
   7. Scan the file for any tweaks you need, like changing ,, to just one ,
   8. Save as text

Whole thing should take about three minutes.


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_________________________________________________

On Sat, Oct 21, 2017 at 7:34 AM, David Greenberg <david.greenberg3 at gmail.com
> wrote:

> I have a hard copy list of names, addresses and phone numbers. I can scan
> to PDF and then copy and paste to a text editor (BBEdit) or other file. I
> then need to manipulate the text so that I end up with a csv file that can
> be opened by a spreadsheet program. Tools that I have at my disposal
> include BBEdit (with Grep), a MAMP stack, NeoOffice (Mac version of
> OpenOffice) and FileMaker.
>
> Input looks like this:
>
> John Doe
> (413) 111-1111
> 123 First St Greenfield 01301
> Jane Smith
> 456 So Main Ln Greenfield 01301
> Jane Ann Smith
> (413) 222-2222
> 78 Main Ct Greenfield 01301
>
> Note that all addresses will include 'Greenfield 01301' and, *if *the
> data includes a phone number, it will start with '(413)'.
>
> Output should look like this:
>
> John,Doe,(413) 111-1111,123 First St,Greenfield,01301
> Jane,Smith,,456 So Main Ln,Greenfield,01301
> Jane Ann,Smith,(413) 222-2222,78 Main Ct,Greenfield,01301
>
> Any suggestions greatly appreciated. Thanks.
>
> David
>
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