Save as Excel problem

[Greg O'Connor]

I am having problems with the 'Save as Excel' feature. The generated Excel file contains an unknown character (is this 'white space?') after each normal character in a field. Only when opening and re-saving the Excel file in 'Excel', all is back to normal.

Also, the FileMaker saved 'Excel' file is double in size before re-saving in Excel, and the unreadable header (when opening in an text editor) disappears to normal after re-saving in Excel itself.

This appears on Win XP. Is this a known problem, does anybody know how the cause of this behaviour and a fix to it?

Thanks a lot for any help.

Edited December 5, 2007 by Guest

[_henry_]

Hello Greg,

Can you please attach the sample of excel file with the script given? Also, what format of information do you want to save to excel?

[Greg O'Connor]

Hi.

I have now a sample of the saved file attached.

This file was saved by FileMaker as an Excel file and contains the unknown and unwanted characters. If you open this file in an text editor, you may see the problem. Also take a look to the header. If the file is re-saved in Excel, the problem characters disappear and the header looks different.

We do not know why this problem with saving Excel files from FileMaker (FMA 9 on XP) persist.

[_henry_]

Hello Greg,

Is it only me who cannot see the file attached or everyone else?

Could you please resend it again?

Thank you

[Greg O'Connor]

Sorry, I see now, I cannot upload files with.xls extension. I have zipped it now and it should be attached.

Cheers

[_henry_]

Hello Greg,

I still couldn't see the file?

[Lee Smith]

There are some things to keep in mind when you attach a file.

Valid file types: zip, txt, pdf, bmp, gif, jpg, png, sit, mov

You may attach a total of 10 file(s).

Maximum attachment size: 1.05 MB.

Next, find the File by clicking on [color:blue]Choose File, Locate it and and then [color:blue]Choose it. Next you [color:blue]ADD the file ( you will see it uploading, especially if it is large), After it is loaded, it will show in the box. You Next need to [color:blue]Finish it.

When the file appears, you can [color:blue]Add Post.

HTH

Lee

[Greg O'Connor]

Thanks Henry and Lee.

I did all the steps again and I hope it is attached now.

Thanks for help.

[_henry_]

Hello Greg,

Well, it seemed that it's bit unlucky for uploading the file. Sometimes, FM gave an error message of uploading.

This time I got the same message.

Here is the message:

Error Page : 404

You came here from : http://fmforums.com/forum/showtopic.php?tid/191760/post/new/

You have requested : /uploads/1197230767-TTStock_direct_from_Filemaker.xls.zip

You have requested a resource that does not exist. The above information has been logged.

[Lee Smith]

Maybe this has happened.

http://fmforums.com/forum/showpost.php?post/274800/

[Greg O'Connor]

Ooops, I have re-uploaded the file. Hope it works this time.

Cheers, Greg

TTStock_direct_from_Filemaker.xls.zip

[_henry_]

Hello Greg,

Finally I can see the file.

Do you mean by "white space" is the white box next to the words in the "Category" or "Level 2 Category"?

If yes, that's function, I believed that as the "next line" function. If you double clicked it, it would generate the new next blank line.

In here, are you taking this data from a website? If yes again, then, you need to do some kind of substitute function to make the "next line" function to be inactive. One way to do it is if this is a website, by reading or

and change it to "". So you will not get a data with

or "next line (¶)."

Moreover, when you said that it has unreadable header and re-save it in Excel, I tried it with the simple test data and tried it to text editor (Notepad), however, it still performs unreadable data. Maybe I am using Win XP, so if you did on Mac OS, when you did resave it in Excel, then it would be readable header? Why do you want see it from Text Editor?

[Greg O'Connor]

Hi Henry.

With white space I mean that beween all characters in a field is a space. (This disappears when the file is re-saved in Excel).

The file is generated from a table (not from a web site) by saving the data "As Excel File" in the FileMaker save menu.

When I did troubleshooting and I am comparing the header of the original saved file (by FM) with a re-saved (in Excel) in an text editor, I can see that the headers are different. However, the header are unreadable encode Excle stuff.

Thats all happening on XP, not Mac.

I have attached the re-saved (in Excel) version of the file that you can compare. Can you see the difference?

However, we have think, that there is an error when FileMaker generates the Excel file, but we cannot find out why!

Cheers

TTStock_resaved_from_Excel-1.xls.zip

Edited December 12, 2007 by Guest

[_henry_]

Hello again Greg

What type of data that contains the White Space that you want to export to?

Well, have you tried to open it with WordPad? Is it give you the same unreadable message?

I found an article about unreadable header for Excel from this website:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/928134/en-us?spid=2512&sid=95

[Greg O'Connor]

Thanks for the link. I will have some reading.

Yes, WordPad (textEditor) shows blanks between each single character in an Excel field.

I am now wondering if there is a FileMaker font formating when saving going on which Excel cannot read. Maybe you link gives a clue about this.