Usage: escape_excel.pl [options] tab_delimited_input.txt [output.txt]
Options:
--all-commas Escape *ALL* numeric-looking fields with commas in them
--csv input CSV file instead of tab-delimited, still outputs tsv
--escape-dq "smart" escaping of " to better preserve them (default)
--no-commas Do not escape ,#### and ####,###
--no-dates Do not escape text that looks like dates and/or times
--no-dq Disable "smart" handling of double quotes
--no-sci Do not escape >= ##E (ex: 12E4) or >11 digit integer parts
--no-zeroes Do not escape leading zeroes (ie. 012345)
--unstrip restore auto-stripped field when not escaped
--paranoid Escape *ALL* non-numeric text (overrides --no-dates)
WARNING -- Excel can take a LONG time to import
text files where most fields are escaped.
Copy / Paste Values can become near unusuable....
Reads input from STDIN if input file name is - or no file name is given.
Input file must be tab-delimited.
Fields will be stripped of existing ="" escapes, enclosing "", leading ",
and leading/trailing spaces, as they may all cause problems.
Defaults to escaping most Excel mis-imported fields.
Escapes a few extra date-like formats that Excel does not consider dates.
Please send unhandled mis-imported field examples (other than gene symbols
with 1-digit scientific notation, such as 2e4) to [email protected].
Does not currently support or detect line wraps. To best preserve line
wraps, use --no-dq and enable --unstrip to better preserve spacing.
Copy / Paste Values in Excel, after importing, to de-escape back into text.
Use the provided text file (test_excel_import.txt) to test the script.
To run Escape Excel on the command line, you first need to see if Perl is
installed on your operating system. MacOS and Linux operating systems should
have Perl installed by default, while Windows users will need to download and
install Perl. To see if Perl is installed on your system, open a terminal
(or "Command Prompt" in Windows) and type perl -v. If the terminal returns
a Perl version, then Perl is already installed on your system. If you see an
error that the command can't be found, then you likely need to install Perl.
To install Perl, visit the [Perl download site]
(https://www.perl.org/get.html), select your appropriate operating system,
and follow the instructions.
Once Perl is installed, open a terminal. Make sure the Escape Excel file
(escape_excel.pl) and the tab delimited data you wish to escape are in the
same folder. Change directory to the location of these files using the cd
command. For example, cd /home/pstew/mydata/. If you are using Mac or
Linux, then you may first need to make the escape_excel.pl file executable.
To do this, type the command chmod u+x escape_excel.pl. This will allow you
to type escape_excel.pl without having to precede it every time with the
perl command.
The syntax for using Escape Excel can be found above in the quick start guide. The usage statement will be displayed with the --help option, or any other invalid option.
This is no longer supported, updated, or otherwise maintained.
You can, however, generate your own .exe file from escape_excel.pl using
PAR Packager (pp): https://metacpan.org/pod/pp
This is no longer supported, updated, or otherwise maintained.
This is no longer supported, updated, or otherwise maintained.
This is no longer supported, updated, or otherwise maintained.
This is no longer supported, updated, or otherwise maintained.