Replies

(Edited by HansV to make URL clickable – see Help 19)

For what it’s worth, the excellent ASAP Utilities add-in from http://www.asap-utilities.com[/url%5D will do this (and much else!) automagically.
Could there also be a solution to your challenge based on conditional formatting?

The three-record sample, Hans, is completely ok, the 400-record real one (different drive, different directory) results in the same error message as before. I was sort of expecting to see a ‘schema.ini’ created on the flash drive from which sample2 came: not there?
Thanks v much for all your help so far!
Am tempted to rename schema.ini to get it out of the action and see if it creates a new one?

XP home sp2 on the box at home, Hans, Windows 2k at the day job, and the behaviour is identical with both. Here’s a 3-record plus labels lump of the file. Got at.

A bit sensitive, Hans, as full of personal data, so will the column labels which are the first record do?
More if you want (or must!)
Most columns of most records are populated: there are no commas in any cell to complicate things.
[The list comes from Microsoft Works .wdb and some fields eg fullname and age come from formulas, but appear in the csv as values, and I’ve had no probs in the past.]

HA-Ha – Lounge won’t let me upload a csv so I’ll have to zip it **grin**

Yes, Hans, I open a new workbook, click into A1 and fire up
Data Get External Data | New Database Query
I name a new data source in the first box and choose the Microsoft Text Driver (*.txt, *.csv) in the second box.
I then navigate to the folder where the data source is, choose it and press the

And top marks to Pieterse for mind-reading bugs in Excel, or me, or both.

Thanks, both, haven’t acknowledged sooner as the email alert was trapped by Council spam filter!
The macro is
sort Macro
‘ Macro recorded 21/06/2005 by John Rose
‘

‘

Application.ScreenUpdating = False
Range(“A2:G254”).Select
Selection.sort Key1:=Range(“E3”), Order1:=xlAscending, Key2:=Range(“G3”) _
, Order2:=xlAscending, Key3:=Range(“C3”), Order3:=xlAscending, Header:= _
xlGuess, OrderCustom:=3, MatchCase:=False, Orientation:=xlTopToBottom
Range(“A3”).Select
Application.ScreenUpdating = True
End Sub

so I’ll change the Guess as suggested.
Can’t use Access, I fear, as grateful employer won’t provide it.

John Rose Asst Recycling Officer Birmingham City Council

But remember that it is 256 columns per worksheet. If you have a 500-column list, it could be spread across more than one worksheet, and selected data from the list could be assembled on yet other worksheets.
Clunky, but could work. Might be helpful to duplicate one column on each sheet, as a database-style ‘primary key’.

But remember that it is 256 columns per worksheet. If you have a 500-column list, it could be spread across more than one worksheet, and selected data from the list could be assembled on yet other worksheets.
Clunky, but could work. Might be helpful to duplicate one column on each sheet, as a database-style ‘primary key’.

BAN, your detailed modification didn’t work for me (but I may have screwed it up.)
What has worked is deleting csv from the file association list and then recreating it.
Will come back if and when it falls over again.
Thanks to all.

BAN, your detailed modification didn’t work for me (but I may have screwed it up.)
What has worked is deleting csv from the file association list and then recreating it.
Will come back if and when it falls over again.
Thanks to all.

Yep, waded into the BIOS and enabled the power management bits.
In my innocence, I’d imagined that Windows does everything on a box, forgetting that it only does what other bits of the innards ALLOW it to.

Yep, waded into the BIOS and enabled the power management bits.
In my innocence, I’d imagined that Windows does everything on a box, forgetting that it only does what other bits of the innards ALLOW it to.

Thanks, BAN, will check this out on offending (offensive?) machine and let you know.

Thanks, BAN, will check this out on offending (offensive?) machine and let you know.