Editing data in Excel

Caution: 
When you open a tab-delimited file in Excel, you must format all columns in the file as text. Use these instructions to format the columns:

If you right-click a file to open it in Excel, the number format is applied to numerical values and the data can be changed. For example, the number format removes zeros from numerical values that start with zeros. This type of change corrupts the data and causes errors when the data is imported.

  1. Open Excel.
  2. Select File > Open.
  3. Select the tab-delimited file, and then click Open.
  4. Verify that Delimited is selected, and then click Next.
  5. Verify that Tab is selected, and then click Next.
  6. Select all columns in the Data Preview section, and then select Text.
    To select all columns:
    1. Verify that the first column is highlighted.
    2. Scroll to the last column.
    3. Press Shift, and then click the last column.
  7. Click Finish
  8. Edit the file.
    See Rules for editing a tab-delimited file in Excel.
  9. Click Save.
  10. Click Yes.