Possible? Free selection in txt files

jimmynaetroots · 9 Oct 2010 at 18:51

Hey everyone.

Does anyone know of any text editor that allows you to select portions of a text file freehand?

I have a text file with columns of numbers and I want to select say one of those columns (which spans 5 rows).

e.g.

12345 12345 12345 12345
12345 12345 12345 12345
12345 12345 12345 12345
12345 12345 12345 12345
12345 12345 12345 12345

Is there any way I can just select an individual column?

Thanks!

G.

PhillyDee · 9 Oct 2010 at 18:52

If they are tab spaceings, can you not open them up as a tab delimited file in excel?

tntcoder · 9 Oct 2010 at 22:54

PhillyDee said:
If they are tab spaceings, can you not open them up as a tab delimited file in excel?

This, or do a find-replace and replace the spaces and with commas and you have a CSV file which you can work with in excel.

yashiro · 10 Oct 2010 at 00:15

http://www.contexteditor.org/

Andre · 10 Oct 2010 at 05:35

TextPad - switch to Column selection mode - Robert is your Mother's Brother

jimmynaetroots · 10 Oct 2010 at 13:20

Thanks a lot guys - the problem with the excel method is that in some columns there are spaces that I need to keep. I will take a look at the last 2 programs, they look ideal!

Thanks!

G.

IAmATeaf · 10 Oct 2010 at 20:35

If you have MS Word then open the text file in Word, hold down the ALT key and highlight the column you want, job done.

KatanaDV20 · 10 Oct 2010 at 22:58

IAmATeaf said:
If you have MS Word then open the text file in Word, hold down the ALT key and highlight the column you want, job done.

I didnt know this!! Thanks for the brilliant tip dude