Opening a text file with Excel

You can open a text file that's been created in another program as an Excel workbook by using the Open command.


Opening a text file in Excel doesn't change the format of the file. You can see this in the title bar - the name of the file keeps the text file name extension e.g. .txt


  1. Start Excel

  2. Click on 'Open'

  3. Make sure you show 'All files' or 'Text files' so that your .txt file is visible

  4. Navigate to the .txt file that you want to open

  5. Click on 'Open'


This will start the Text Import Wizard. Follow the instructions in the Text Import Wizard to open the file.

If you need more detailed instructions, search for 'Import and export text files' in Excel help