On Tue, 22 Jun 2010 18:22:10 +0100, Orchid XP v8 wrote:

>>> Excel can *import* text files with all sorts of strange delimiters.
>>> However, it seems to be unable to *create* anything except CSV or
>>> tab-delimited; there's no option for pipe-delimited.
>> 
>> Fortunately, that's pretty easy to work around with a scripting
>> language.  Export tab delimited and then use something like awk to
>> replcae the tabs with pipes = job done.
> 
> Oh, sure, I'm not disputing that. I'm just wondering where the hell some
> random user who can barely operate Notepad has heard of pipe-delimited
> files from...

Probably a vendor that they interact with who said "we need/will provide 
files in this format".

I interact with a company that delivers exams and a company that tracks 
exam results and certifications; the typical user of the systems they 
provide is non-technical, and they provide data in that type of format - 
it's actually fairly widely used because "|" isn't often part of actual 
data.

The perhaps surprising thing is that Excel and oocalc both don't have an 
option built in for exporting files in that format, given that they are 
so widely used.

Jim

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