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You can open a file created in another program, such as Lotus 1-2-3 or Quattro Pro, in Microsoft Excel the same way you would open an Excel file. You can then save the file in its original file format or as an Excel workbook using the standard Excel save commands. Files saved as Excel workbooks might not retain all of their original formatting, and features and formatting of an Excel workbook might not be available in other programs.
Changing the default file format for saving workbooks
If you work with others who use earlier versions of Excel or other spreadsheet programs, you can change the default file format used to save workbooks you create in Excel 2002 or later.
Supported Lotus 1-2-3 and Quattro Pro versions
Excel can directly open files from Lotus 1-2-3 versions up through 4.0 (*.wk?) and Quattro Pro for Windows versions 5.0 and 7.0 by using the Quattro Pro converter. To open a file from a later Quattro Pro version in Excel, either save the file in an earlier Quattro Pro format, or save the file in another format, such as Lotus 1-2-3 (*.wk?). Although you can open Quattro Pro for MS-DOS and Quattro Pro for Windows files, there are some limitations to opening the worksheets.
If you didn't install the converter for Quattro Pro files when you installed Excel, you must install it before you can open files in that format. You can't use the Quattro Pro file converter to save files. You will need to install the Quattro Pro converters from the Microsoft Office Web site.
Excel 2000 and later versions can open password protected WKS and WK1 files and files that are protected at the worksheet level. Excel 2000 and later versions cannot open WK3 or WK4 files that are protected with a file-level password. Excel 2000 and later versions cannot open Quattro Pro files that are password protected. Before you open the file in Excel, make sure you have removed any password from the file.
If the data you want to use in Excel is in a text file with data delimited (separated) by tab characters, commas, spaces, or similar characters, you can just open the file in Excel. Excel uses the Text Import Wizard to interpret the text according to your instructions and divides the data into rows and columns on a worksheet. You can also copy delimited text data from a word-processing document or other document into a workbook and then divide the text into columns.
Copying text from another program to Excel
If you want to use only some of the text from a text file, you can copy that data into Excel and then separate the copied text data into columns.