Paste from Clipboard into Excel - Harder than it looks?

[jamesinnewcastle]

Hi All

I have used my script to paste a string ($TestCSVGenerator) onto the clipboard - it has text seperated by tabs and at certain intervals there are CRLF. I am certain that this is a valid string because after I run my script (and it fails to do what I need) I can then manually 'Paste' the string into Excel using CTRL v and Excel puts the text in rows separated by the tab position and starts a new row of cells after a CRLF. (I make sure that the clipboard was empty before running my program).

All I need is a command that pastes the string into a certain cell and in theory the above should happen but it doesn't!

First I tried the following:

_Excel_RangeWrite ($oWorkbook, 1, $TestCSVGenerator, "C18", False, True)

This pastes, but everything goes in one cell! I've tried all the combinations of True/false

Next I tried:

_Excel_RangeCopyPaste($oWorkbook.ActiveSheet, Default, "C18")

This pastes nothing at all (gives @error =4 ), if I define a range of cells Excel does highlight them.

 

Any ideas or alternative methods? I guess I could paste the text painfully cell by cell but Excel seems to understand what I have on the clipboard if I paste it manually - it's the automation that is flooring me!

 

Cheers

James

 

 

 

[jamesinnewcastle]

Hi Again

After typing 'manually pasting' a couple of times in my question, and getting a cup of tea, I have just realised that I had forgotten the whole reason for using Autoit in the first place!! I wanted to play back key presses! So...

Send ("{CTRLDOWN}")
Send ("v")
Send ("{CTRLUP}")

Solves my problem! (Just hope that there is a 'move cursor to cell x,y' instruction)

Anyway I'm still interetsted as to why the other two methods didn't work.

 

James

 

 

[jamesinnewcastle]

Arrgh

Can't find a quick way of putting the Excel cursor to a particular cell! Kinda back to square one! I could just use this:

_Excel_RangeCopyPaste($oWorkbook.ActiveSheet, Default, "B16")

That moves the cursor to B16!

 

James

[water]

_Excel_RangeWrite does not work this way. You provide a string and tell _Excel_RangeWrite to write it into a single-celled Range. _Excel_RangeWrite exactly does what it is being told to do
Will come up with a solution how to insert data without automating the GUI!

[water]

Use this code to create an array out of the string and then use _Excel_RangeWrite.

#include <Array.au3>
Global $sString = "Row 1 Col 1" & @TAB & "Row 1 Col 2" & @CRLF & "Row 2 Col 1" & @TAB & "Row 2 Col 2"
Global $aTarget = _StringSplit2D($sString, @TAB)
_ArrayDisplay($aTarget)

; #FUNCTION# ======================================================================================
; Name ................:    _StringSplit2D($str, $delimiter)
; Description .........:    Create 2D array from delimited string
; Syntax ..............:    _DBG_StringSplit2D($str, $delimiter)
; Parameters ..........:    $str       - EOL (@CR, @LF or @CRLF) delimited string to split
;                           $delimiter - Delimter for columns
; Return values .......:    2D array
; Author ..............:    kylomas
; =================================================================================================
Func _StringSplit2D($str, $delimiter)

    Local $a1 = StringRegExp($str, '[^\r\n]+', 3)
    Local $rows = UBound($a1), $cols = 0
    ; determine max number of columns
    For $i = 0 To UBound($a1) - 1
        StringReplace($a1[$i], $delimiter, '')
        $cols = (@extended > $cols ? @extended : $cols)
    Next
    ; define and populate array
    Local $aRET[$rows][$cols + 1]
    For $i = 0 To UBound($a1) - 1
        $a2 = StringSplit($a1[$i], $delimiter, 3)
        For $j = 0 To UBound($a2) - 1
            $aRET[$i][$j] = $a2[$j]
        Next
    Next
    Return $aRET

EndFunc   ;==>_StringSplit2D

 

Edited May 16, 2016 by water
Code was missing

[jamesinnewcastle]

Hi Water

I couldn't see any code attached?

I actually had an array before I converted it to a string, I've been through all the same pain with the Array but I'm looking forward to seeing your suggestion!

 

James

[water]

Added script above.
If you already have an array then there shouldn't be a problem with _Excel_RangeWrite. Which problems did you have?

[MichaelHB]

I dont know if i got it right, but something like this maybe?

#include <Excel.au3>

Local $sWorkbook = "?" ;put the file name here ***************************

$oWorkbook = _Excel_BookAttach($sWorkbook, "filename")
If @error Then Exit MsgBox($MB_SYSTEMMODAL, "Excel UDF: _Excel_BookAttach Example 2", "Error attaching to '" & $sWorkbook & "'." & @CRLF & "@error = " & @error & ", @extended = " & @extended)

$sString = "A1" & @CRLF & "A2" & @TAB & "B2" & @TAB & "C2" & @TAB & @CRLF & "A3" & @TAB & "B3" & @TAB & @CRLF & "A4"
ClipPut($sString)
$oWorkbook.Activesheet.Paste($oWorkbook.Activesheet.Range("A1"))
Exit

You need to open manually and attach or change the method to"_Excel_BookOpen".

[jamesinnewcastle]

Hi Water

The same problem with pasting an array using  _Excel_RangeWrite in that it puts all the text into one cell. Seems odd to call it 'RangeWrite' if it only goes into a single cell - better name might be CellWrite?

When it does put all the text in one cell I can 'copy' the text in that cell (from the edit line at the top of the Excel window) and then 'paste' it into another cell on the sheet and hey presto it puts all the text into seperate cells! I was wondering if any 'copy special' stuff was the issue? As you say it looks as if _Excel_RangeWrite goes to a lot of effort to put everything into a single cell.

 

Cheers

James

[water]

1 hour ago, jamesinnewcastle said:

Seems odd to call it 'RangeWrite' if it only goes into a single cell - better name might be CellWrite?

Did you try the example scripts that come with the help file for _Excel_RangeWrite? I know that the function can handle strings, 1D and 2D arrays.

[water]

Please post an example script (a stripped down reproducer of your problm) where you use an array.

[jamesinnewcastle]

Sorry - been out of the office - will try to post a reply tomorrow - might take a while to strip down the code.

The example scripts didn't quite do what I needed.

 many thanks

James

[jamesinnewcastle]

Hi Water

Hi MichaelHB - sorry I missed your post.

Attached is my program - it all runs in one directory - you can see the path name, you may need to change it I guess. There are two ancilliary files that need to be there. The program reads in a file and tries to put it into the execl sheet on a one item per cell basis.

You should see that it does take notice of the CRLF in that the strings get put into cells one below each other but the TABs are ig nored. If you highlight a cell and copy the text from the Excel edit box at the top of the page and then paste that into another cell - then Excel does take note of the Tabs and put each part of the string into a different cell.

What I need is to have each chunk of text in its own cell. You can see what I want to do by looking at the Excell file - basically this program interrogates a database and pastes the results into Excel.

I've attached a file - hope it works - ther was an interesting 'autoit.zip' function when I zipped the files so I used that.

 

Cheers

JamesAuto It.zip

 

 

Edited May 20, 2016 by jamesinnewcastle

[jamesinnewcastle]

Hmmmm

It eems that I have never understood csv and Excel!

It is completely correct that Excel 'pastes' csv files into single cells for each string up to a CRLF. So neither Autoit or Excel are doing anything wrong - looks like its just me again!! There is a command applied manually that will seperate the string apparently but I think it will be easier for me to do the paste cell by cell!

 

Thansk all