Changed My Mind About Numbers
It's crap.
Tried to import tab delimited text that I downloaded from my local power company to create a chart... Numbers wouldn't import it.
Tried to import same data in 3 other formats (html, rtf, txt)... still wouldn't import it.
Had to import the same data into Microsoft Excel
, which offered me tons of options about formatting the text data. Saved it (now formatted) to Excel format, THEN was able to import into Numbers! 
If I didn't have Excel Numbers would be utterly worthless!
Numbers needs a hell of a lot of improving, maybe it'll survive the next round of cuts by iSteve.
Tried to import tab delimited text that I downloaded from my local power company to create a chart... Numbers wouldn't import it.
Tried to import same data in 3 other formats (html, rtf, txt)... still wouldn't import it.
Had to import the same data into Microsoft Excel
, which offered me tons of options about formatting the text data. Saved it (now formatted) to Excel format, THEN was able to import into Numbers! If I didn't have Excel Numbers would be utterly worthless!
Numbers needs a hell of a lot of improving, maybe it'll survive the next round of cuts by iSteve.
Comments
It's crap.
Tried to import tab delimited text that I downloaded from my local power company to create a chart... Numbers wouldn't import it.
Tried to import same data in 3 other formats (html, rtf, txt)... still wouldn't import it.
Had to import the same data into Microsoft Excel
If I didn't have Excel Numbers would be utterly worthless!
Numbers needs a hell of a lot of improving, maybe it'll survive the next round of cuts by iSteve.
Huh?
Not sure what you were doing differently but this works every day for me. I just drag the tab delimited file onto Numbers and get the expected table.
I agree they should add support for additional delimiters and for text-column conversion but the basic tab stuff seems to work. Again, maybe I'm not doing the same thing. All i'm doing is opening a file with rows where the fields are separated by tabs.
Huh?
Not sure what you were doing differently but this works every day for me. I just drag the tab delimited file onto Numbers and get the expected table.
I agree they should add support for additional delimiters and for text-column conversion but the basic tab stuff seems to work. Again, maybe I'm not doing the same thing. All i'm doing is opening a file with rows where the fields are separated by tabs.
The information I had was poorly formatted (with commas) from my local power company online.
The downloaded information, initially an .asx (?) file didn't work, thus the hoops I had to jump through to get something usable. Then I saved as html, etc....
Even with the sloppy formatting, Excel handled it like a champ with a raft of options not available in Numbers.
The information I had was poorly formatted (with commas) from my local power company online.
The downloaded information, initially an .asx (?) file didn't work, thus the hoops I had to jump through to get something usable. Then I saved as html, etc....
Even with the sloppy formatting, Excel handled it like a champ with a raft of options not available in Numbers.
OK. so tab formatted text works but not mixed delimiter formatting. As I said adding more delimiter recognition would be great but then adding the type of layout options I've found in Numbers to Excel would be great too
So simple workaraound would be a quick search and replace in Pages. No Excel necessary. Search for commas and replace with a tab. Not rocket science.
Doing it in Pages would be a tad silly. Use a text editor.
However, that won't help either as fields are enclosed in quotes usually and you don't want to be replacing all commas if the data in the field has them in.
Yes, Numbers' CSV file handling is too simplistic. Nobody seems to agree the exact format a CSV file should be in so slight variations cause grief. Try importing a CSV file where the data in a field contains line feeds for an extreme example of where many tools go wrong.
Maybe it will be snappier? now!
--
Scott
http://ukmac.net
Numbers is great for simple tables and graphs, but there's no question Excel is much more advanced. I say Numbers won't be a worthy competitor until 2.0. Maybe Apple will whip up some macro-like technology á la AppleScript.
Depends. Like Pages v Word, I'm already doing things in Numbers that I can't do in Excel and doing them easily. Numbers' sliders and checkboxes are pure genius.
The missing AppleScript support is the obvious missing power feature and I'm sure there are others but for a 1.0 product, Numbers is very good. It could do with being faster as could all of the iWork applications, or perhaps I could just do with a faster Mac than my 1.8 G5. It's also taken me a while to unlearn some Excel habits but once you've worked out what it does differently, Excel feels very clunky. I always reach for the iWork applications first to work with now, not Office, as they're just plain fun to use.
So simple workaraound would be a quick search and replace in Pages. No Excel necessary. Search for commas and replace with a tab. Not rocket science.
Somehow you guys are missing the point. I was unable to get this data into Numbers without first filtering it with Excel.
Somehow you guys are missing the point. I was unable to get this data into Numbers without first filtering it with Excel.
Or maybe you missed something? He said Pages to filter, rather than XL as a filter.
Originally Posted by tonton
So simple workaraound would be a quick search and replace in Pages. No Excel necessary. Search for commas and replace with a tab. Not rocket science.
The information I had was poorly formatted (with commas) from my local power company online.
The downloaded information, initially an .asx (?) file didn't work, thus the hoops I had to jump through to get something usable. Then I saved as html, etc....
Even with the sloppy formatting, Excel handled it like a champ with a raft of options not available in Numbers.
Tell your power company to format tab delimited correctly. What a concept. Or you could write a sed awk script to fix it for yourself and then drag it into Numbers yourself.
Tell your power company to format tab delimited correctly. What a concept. Or you could write a sed awk script to fix it for yourself and then drag it into Numbers yourself.
"Tell your power company" to change their formatting?
In AppleWorks you could use Shift-Command-I/Shift-Command-K to add or delete rows quickly, but times have obviously changed.
I only see an option in Numbers for adding one row/column at a time (and no corresponding keyboard shortcut), and that's really starting to get on my nerves...
Is there a way to create your own keyboard shortcuts?