What is the easiest way to wrap text in csv file?

bump

On my i2, long description text will automatically wrap when it hits the edge of the screen.

If you want to control where each line breaks, you can press ALT-ENTER to force a new line while you're typing data into a cell. These breaks will be saved in CSV format as well.

Setting Excel to wrap text in a cell doesn't insert line breaks.

JM

Thanks for your tips. I found out that if I make a POI file with Notepad with all line braks, I can not open it in POIedit program.

I tried inserting line breaks for an address in Excel using ALT ENTER and i get the same error, that the format is not supported when i try to save it. What are you doing differently then we are? Thanks

When you select "save as" and you get the save as box, then type in the file name, then make sure in the save as type box you find and select csv (comma delimited). When you click save you may get a notice that says
"The selected file type does not support workbooks that contain multiple sheets"
To save the current sheet click OK - click OK
Then you'll probably get another notice that reads
File_name.csv may contain features not compatible with CSV (comma delimited). Do you want to keep the workbook in this format? Click yes
Then you will have your csv file, and should load ok (provided all the info is in the proper order etc)

Also try -- format -- cells -- number -- then select text.
This will treat numbers as text. Don't really need text wrap. Because depending on gps screen width the line may break where it needs to. You can force a line return with the alt enter in excel.

Although I have used the "alt enter" in excel, I also like to reopen the file in wordpad. After saving the excel file as .csv, all of the quotation marks are properly placed. When opened in wordpad, I can hit a return anywhere between the quotes and will see the text move to the next line. I then resave the file. This works well for files that are relatively small i.e. about 100 items.

Forced line breaks are useful when you want the screen formated such as city, state or phone number on another line.

Jn Excel press Aly+Enter at the point you wan to wrap. Each cell is done separately. Does anyone know how to do it globally.

Not sure how exactly your work flow goes when creating a csv, but when I'm putting all the address, city, state, etc. back into one field in excel I include a character (for me I usually use a "$$") that's not anywhere else in the file to mark where I want a line break to go. It looks like this:

921 SW Sixth Avenue$$Portland OR 97204$$1-503-226-1611

Then once the csv is created I open it in Word and do a find & replace. Find the $$ and replace it with Word's manual line break. Then save the file again.

You just have to get a find & replace that'll do a manual line break character and you are all set.

In a post on a different thread, someone mentioned ASAP Utilities, an add on for EXCEL. It has the capabilities to do find and replace with special characters. This add on is available for free at: http://www.asap-utilities.com/

I use a technique similar to P38net's but with a twist to accomodate the eccentricity of my Nuvi 350. It does not recognize ASCII line breaks but does work with html line breaks. During composition I insert a marker character where I want breaks and then use Find and Replace to switch those to the html character ("br" enclosed by chicken beaks).

I use this add on. It is amazing. There must be two hundred macros that perform many tasks. It has become indispensable. I use it quite a lot when creating POIs. Removes spaces transposes lists in to data fields plus many more. I recommend it highly.

That is ok! What that means is that a csv file format can't support sheets and books. Don't worry about it. Just say 'ok' and save it. I work with csv files all the time at work.

[Sorry about the incomplete post before this one. I used my browser's back arrow to look up something. When I came back, I saw that my message had been sent before I completed it.]

Nut of my question is this: What is "Word's manual line break"? I've tried the same technique P38nut expains here, putting the string ^p in the Replace With field. No joy.

Whatever "line break command" I try results in the command's actual text appearing onscreen. And using Enter or Alt-Enter in a csv file results in new rows in the spreadsheet. Very frustrating.

TIA. Using Garmin Nuvi 250W, POI Loader, MS Excel

Those with a nuvi 350 or nuvi 360 ... remember, the standard LF/CR does not produce a linebreak on the display. All LF/CR have to be changed to <br> ... the main reason for creating 'POI Verifier'.

RT

After a little more experimentation, I finally figured out how to get clean line breaks on my Nuvi 250W (s/w v2.60, the latest for this model), using POI Loader (v2.4.2.0).

When creating the POI csv file using MS Excel v2003, I put the nonsense characters BBBB wherever I wanted a line break to occur. Then I opened the csv file with MS Word, and used the Find and Replace command: Find BBBB, and replace with ^l (That's the caret found above the 6 on keyboards, followed by lower-case letter el. That's not the numeral one, nor a capital letter EYE.)

For whatever reason, the other recommended approaches didn't work with my combination of software and GPS model. Not only did bracketed BR, CHAR(10) and others not result in line breaks, they appeared literally as text on my screen.

This problem has been bugging me for the better part of a week. Hope this info will help anyone else who has experienced similar frustration.

Rich

I am trying to find and easy way to enter proximity alerts into a CSV file that has been imported to GeePeeEx Editor converted and back as CSV. I want to be able to set say 500 waypoints at 600 feet without having to do each waypoint one at a time. I am hoping to do a find and replace all to accomplish this, but excel does not allow me find one row and replace with two that I know of.

I want a way to find a row in a CSV file and replace it with two rows. That would mean I would find gpxx:WaypointExtension in row 5 and replace it with gpxx:WaypointExtension in row 5 and insert gpxx:Proximity>304.8

Steve,
I didn't know you were still having trouble with this...
...I'll email you a more detailed response.

I also have the problem of being able to replace the "br" globally in MS Excel v2007. A large file (over 1200 lines) is not something you want to go through one "br" at a time. I tried many ways of using the "alt+enter" in the find and replace with no luck. Finally I went over to the MS Excel discussion group and posed the problem. Their solution was to use a "ctrl+j" for the "alt"enter". I tried it, and it worked like a champ. It's not documented in any Excel help file that I could find. Don't know if this will work with other versions of Excel.

Bob

http://POIVerifier.com will do this in an instant; and without the formatting problems often caused by Excel.

RT

I believe that your program is an excellent way of doing the same thing. But my suggestion was free, an important consideration as the economy worsens, and belts tighten.

Bob

FREE??? Where do you find a legal copy of Excel for free?

I do believe 'Poi Verifier' will be a slight bit cheaper!

RT

You find a legal copy of Excel on the computer at the Public Library.
I'm not belittling your program, I think it's a great buy for all the other things it will do, but for right now, the ctrl+j will have to work for me.

Bob

Not in our library in our small town. In fact, there are libraries in NM, AZ, TX, and CO that we stopped at that didn't have Excel on their computers.

Everyone to their own. If a person's time is worth anything, I'm betting the time spent adding or removing the <br>s far exceeds the small donation asked for POI Verifier; and on the plus side, we will get more POIs 'free of formatting errors'.

RT

The price for POI Verifier is really nominal. I agree that in addition to just replacing the br, POI Verifier is invaluable in finding errors prior to posting. Better to get tested files than non tested files. I always run downloaded files through POI Verifier prior to uploading to my GPSr.

Open Office is free and is an excellent substitution for M$ Office, especially for things like POI file work. And will be a slight bit cheaper than Poi Verifier.

PT

But will Open Office, on a click of a button:
1. Find POI formatting errors?
2. Remove all linebreaks?
3. Convert standard linebreaks to <br>?
4. Convert <br> to standard linebreaks?
5. Selectively divide the POI in files specified by states?
6. Swap longitude and latitude coordinates?
7. Find all duplicate POIs (Selectively removing duplicates is in the making)?
POI Verifier will!

Randomly download a batch of POI files and run them through 'POI Verifier'; you can tell who didn't use it ... the ones with formatting errors. (Check the threads in the last 2 weeks and you'll find postings discussing bad POIs.) Many times Excel will create formatting errors ... I'd be surprised if Open Office is any better!

I used to spot-check the POIs by downloading and checking a bunch with the 'Verifier' and send the corrections to Miss POI; but this got to be too much of a job because of all the errors. Much of this would be eliminated if everyone would check their own POIs before uploading. Wouldn't it be nice if one could download a POI from 'the Factory' and be assured it was good?

Sure, there are ways around using 'POI Verifier'. Like I said, everyone to their own. How much is your time worth???

RT

How is this done? Does the CSV file have to have the state name or abbreviation in the name or comment fields? If so a sort in a QUALIFIED (Excel or any other spread sheet program) program could do this.

I am wondering that if it does not have to have the name then the only other way is to have the Lat/Lon coordinates mapped in the program. This is because of all the irregular state borders that the Lat/Lon coordinates overlap each other. This would be a very large database for mapping.

Example :
4366 Big Bend Rd Kentucky is 5 miles north of 15528 Quarry Ln Indiana. And as you know Indiana is on the north border of Kentucky

And if you don't have them mapped exactly, are there errors that do crop up when sorting by state.

Nope, but will POI Verifier work on a Mac? Open Office will.

Sure, but it is a user to user web site with submissions from across the human jungle, so you get what you get sometimes. It would be nice if all the POI files could be checked and be error free. But the tools for that simply don't exist for everyone or for those that the tools do exist, they may not want to pay for them.

I figure POI files here as "AS IS" so you take your chances on what you get, including the accuracy of the actual locations, which no tool exists yet to accurately check that I am aware of. You can have a perfectly formatted POI file but that perfectly formatted data could all be worthless.

I believe most people over value their free time considerably.

Cheers,
PT

You select the state/Province/Territory from a drop-down menu, and it will create a file (as stated in the program and posted on this website) "Check this box and select the two letter abbreviation to create a file which will include only the POIs that fall within the selected state (or Province/Territory). Since the search is done on a rectangle which encompasses the state, some POIs from neighboring states may be displayed."

RT

In other words it is introducing errors into the file to sort by state?

No, it won't work on Mac. Since the vast majority of computers are PCs, the huge amount of time I spent writing the program was directed toward the 'vast majority'. Maybe you'd like to write a 'Verifier' program for Mac?

"Sometimes bad data is worse than no data at all". If there's a tool available to make the data "good", why not use it? If a POI won't load, or only partially loads, what good is it? My Pappy always used to tell us "If you can't do a job as good as you can the first time, don't do it at all?"

Do you really believe what you said "You can have a perfectly formatted POI file but that perfectly formatted data could all be worthless."? That's like saying 'since one coordinate MAY not be accurate, let's not worry about any of the file's formatting'. You may end up with a file that you can't even load to check the accuracy.

Like I've said before on this thread, everyone to their own. If you don't want to use the 'Verifier', don't. Maybe your time isn't worth anything ... mine is!

RT

No! All it's doing is separating POI lines by state. It isn't introducing errors into anything. The original file is untouched.

If you search the internet for websites that display state coordinates, everyone I've found operate this same way. This 'preferred' method appears to satisfy most people.

If you want to construct a database for every 10 feet along the boarder of every state/Province/Territory, I'll be happy to put it into the program. Until then, I'll use the 'preferred' method!

RT

Which work great for all my projects!! I use the program all the time and saves me so much time.. it checks for dups bad lines and even will seperate my large file into smallerones, so what if a few files are outside the state that your doing, in fact, if I live near the boarder, i would must likely load both state files so that I can get the locations near me anyway.

Keep up the great work and I will alway use your program.. for the few $'s that I paid, which I think is very far - since it is just helping you keep your page and expenses down.. well worth it. it's not like it $10 or $20 dollors!!

Good work !!

I would love to. But alas, no time and my programming skills are rusty.

Well... ya. Anyone could make a POI file which appears to have lots of great info in it. But upon using it you find the locations to be wrong, missing a bunch, having a bunch that no longer are there, etc.

My point was on a site like this were the vast majority of POI files are user generated and submitted, I would be more concerned with if the POI data is even accurate over if the format is perfect. I figure I can clean up a POI (by hand or with an app like yours) after the fact if I find it is good one and I like it. But I am not going to work on POI file that is mostly wrong. I would rather just start a fresh one.

RT, I just like winding you up because you are so easy and seem to get defensive over mostly benign comments. Maybe you should retire and relax... oh wait.....

Take care,
PT

So you publicly admitted to 'Trolling' ... spreading 'hate and discontent' among the troops without any interest in the subject at hand (you affected others)? Last I heard this wasn't allowed on this website!

Hey, isn't that the same excuse one uses when they realize they're beat?

Excuse me, but I need to spend my 'valuable' time programming! Bye

RT

Guttermouth,
This is not acceptable behavior in this forum. Please do not try to start flame wars.

RT is a valuable respected member of this community and I get really ticked when people mess with him.

I am locking this thread.