Ildhund:

Thank you so much for your help. Sorry to keep complicating matters but the
first two entries arent always the same character count... It could be
M1-M19999 and the second entry 1-9 characxters long... kind of ruins the
fixed length delimiter.

Any thoughts?
Luke Slotwinski

"Ildhund" wrote:

One of those fascinating but oh so frustrating tasks unless you can trust
the original data to be consistent! I just played around for a few minutes
and came up with:
With your string in column A, Text to Columns fixed width could give you
M1234 in A, 1112223 in B and the rest in C. Then Text to Columns again on C,
this time with comma as your delimiter will put the surname in C and the
rest in D. Text to Columns again on D with ( as the delimiter leaves the
forename(s)and age in D and the rest in E. Now insert a couple of columns
between D and E. In E, put in a formula like
=IF(ISERROR(FIND(" ",TRIM(D1),FIND(" ",TRIM(D1),1)+1)),LEFT(TRIM(D1),FIND("
",TRIM(D1))),LEFT(TRIM(D1),FIND(" ",TRIM(D1),FIND(" ",TRIM(D1),1)+1)))
which should give you one or two forenames. In F, =trim(RIGHT(D1,4)) will
put the age there. Then Text to Columns on what's left with both space and )
as delimiters gives you the rest. If in stage 3 of the Text to Columns
wizard you mark the left-hand column as "Date", your date-like data will
turn into a date. All that's left then is to delete column D, and then
concatenate as you will into columns further right.

Please try this on a copy of your data first, and remember that the long
formula will only deal with one or two forenames (not three) and the little
formula in F assumes that none of your patients is over 99.

--
Noel


"Luke Slotwinski" wrote in
message ...
Nick:

Thank you for your help... I am running into a problem though.
If I set the Text to Columns for an 8 entry string format...
M1234 1112223 SHMOE, JOE ADAM 2Y(01/01/2005) M ER
then I have an entry w/o a middle name that is 7 entries long
T2323 5551212 EXAMPLE, GIRL 3Y(01/01/2004) F AUC
It will paste 3Y(01/01/2004) into E* when I'd like to have it in F*... is
there a way to limit column E* to alpha only and if there is numerics to
skip
to colum F and paste?

Thank you,
Luke Slotwinski
"Nick Hodge" wrote:

Luke

I would split these using DataText to columns.... using space as the
delimiter. This will split them into the 7/8 fields. Then you can
re-assemble them using concatenation and copying down

e.g. M1234 and 2008000 will now be in A1 and B1, so you can re-assemble
them
in a helper column to the right using

=A1&" "&B1

Once you have them all re-assembled and copied down, copy the helper
columns
and EditPaste Special...Values to themselves to kill the formulae and
delete all the other stuff you don't need.

--
HTH
Nick Hodge
Microsoft MVP - Excel
Southampton, England
DTHIS
www.nickhodge.co.uk


"Luke Slotwinski" wrote in
message ...
Sorry got home from work and realized I made a mistake in this
description...
I need the paste string to be distributed accross a row not down a
column...
i.e. A1 B1 C1 ect, and not A1 A2 A3... Sorry for the confusion.

"Luke Slotwinski" wrote:

I am in need of a solution to split a paste string into multiple cells
within
a row.
There are 7 to 8 entries in this string, an example would be
M1234 2008000 Doe, Jane Mary 33Y(05/05/2000) F ER (8 string entry)
or
M5678 1234567 Lee, Jack 70Y(01/01/1900) M Psych (7 string entry)

Using the first example to expand on the needs of this project:
M1234 2008000 -- should go to Cell A1
Doe, Jane Mary -- should go to Cell A2
33Y(05/05/2000) F - should go to Cell A3
ER -- to go to Cell A4
*what complicates matters is there is not always a middle name so the
string
length varies from 7 and 8 entries (seperated by commas). But there
will
always be an age (number) to start the next cell after the name.

Idealy if a user pasted this string of information into cell A1, it
would
take it and split it up between A1 and A4.

Any help would be GREATLY appreciated,
Thank you,
Luke Slotwinski