I'd open the CSV in Excel as you're doing and then select the data and do a
copy followed by a Edit, Paste Special, Values into the template.

You can directly read the text into your template however using the Data
menu. The command varies with your Excel version (always a good idea to
mention it in a post) but it's Import External Data in Excel 2003.

--
Jim
"rob" wrote in message
...
|I constantly get csv files from another party which I have to do a lot
| of formatting on in order to use. I do all this formatting and then save
| them in XL format.
|
| The format I use is always the same (column widths, coloring, and the
| like, nothing complicated but it takes several minutes to do it every
| time) so I'd like to use a template to pull this off.
|
| I made a template with all my formatted and then did File/New and
| selected my template. To bring in a csv file I did File/Open and
| selected a csv file. It made a separate workbook with the csv data in
| the usual XL default format and ignored my template. I can't find any
| other options on how to input the file or use the template.
|
| Surely I'm missing something and XL will do what I need. Can one of you
| XL wizards give me some clues here? Thanks a lot.