How to Convert Word Files to Excel Files

 Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel are both products in the Microsoft Office suite, and as such, they play well together. Converting files from Word to Excel is not difficult, but you must keep in mind the nature of the two programs. Word is a word processing program and Excel is a spreadsheet program. While they can share information, careful formatting before conversion ensures an accurate result.

instructions:

1. Copy and Paste

   • 1
     Open the Word file in Microsoft Word.
   • 2
     Click and drag to highlight the information you wish to bring into Excel, press "Ctrl-C" to copy.
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   • 3
     Open Microsoft Excel and click into a blank cell.
   • 4
     Press "Ctrl-V" to paste" the Word content into Excel. Table data from Word transfers the best. Paragraph text is pasted into the first cell on each row, with one paragraph per row.

   Save the Word file as HTML First

   • 5
     Open the Word file in Microsoft Word.
   • 6
     Select Click the "File" menu and select "Save As." Choose "HTML" or "Web page" in the Save As Type drop-down menu.
   • 7
     Click "Save" and you will have a file with the .htm extension.
   • 8
     Open Excel to a blank spreadsheet, select the "File" menu and choose "Open."
   • 9
     Select the HTML file you just saved from Word and click "Open." Excel will read this file, placing any table data in separate cells and individual paragraphs on new rows, but the text is formatted a little better than with the copy-and-paste method.
   • 10
     Click in cells containing numerical table data and you'll see that they are completely editable in Excel. Excel maintains the format from the Word HTML document very well.

   Insert Word File as an Object

   • 11
     Open Excel to a blank spreadsheet.
   • 12
     Select the "Insert" menu, choose "Object..." and choose Microsoft Word document as the type.
   • 13
     Click the "From File" button, navigate to the Word file you want to bring into Excel and click "OK."
   • 14
     Notice that this object is not editable in Excel. It appears as an image on the spreadsheet. If you double click the object, however, Microsoft Word will open and allow you to edit the file. Any changes made to the file in Word are automatically transferred to the object in Excel when you save and exit Word.

Tips & Warnings

• Excel can also read plain text files created by Word, but the information in the text file must be formatted as tab-, comma- or space-delimited text for Excel to put the correct information into separate rows and columns.
• Use the Convert Table to Text command under the Table menu in Word to create data separated by tabs or commas before saving the file as a text file to achieve the best results when you open the text file in Excel.
• Commercial utilities that convert documents from Word to Excel are available on the Internet.
• To work with a Word file in Excel, it's best to have the Word application on the same computer with Excel.