RE: [libreoffice-users] Import in Calc: what do I do wrong?

Dear Remy,

 

First of all: thanks, but to be honest: inspired by your answers I start experimenting a bit and 
found out what I did wrong.

 

Message to my self: Don’t click but carefully read the form first!!

 

Calc does better than Excel: is detects the possible delimiters itself – and does it very well. 
What I completely overlooked is that this is the default option as well. Is missed it entirely (I 
worked in Dark mode with a black background in the application form but that doesn’t clear me.

 

For both examples it was the same error:

 



 

Thanks for getting me to dive deeper in it: in the 1st case I now use Fixed with – as you 
suggested, and in de 2nd one I specify a delimiter manually.

 

Best regards, Hans Troost

 

From: Remy Gauthier <remygauthier@yahoo.com> 
Sent: vrijdag 23 januari 2026 04:33
To: ht.lists@gmail.com; users@global.libreoffice.org
Subject: Re: [libreoffice-users] Import in Calc: what do I do wrong?

 

Greetings,

 

If your data is in a text file, then Sheet > Import from file should do the trick if you use fixed 
width fields (not delimited) where only one field is defined. For the second group of files in your 
message, I would try using delimited fields with the colon as delimiter. This will create three 
columns where column 2 will contain "created"; the tow others will contain the filename and the 
creation date.

 

I hope this helps.

Rémy.

Le jeudi 22 janvier 2026 à 21:14 +0100, ht.lists@gmail.com <mailto:ht.lists@gmail.com>  a écrit :

What do I do wrong?

 

 

 

In the process of - slowly - switching from MS/365 for Linux/LibreOffice (Debian 13.3) I encounter 
some problems with Calc

 

 

 

Please see below a part of a directory listing of an Obsidian vault - made with KFind

 

 

 

Try to import it Calc for some purposes, but the <dot> and <slash> or their combination 
<dot><slash> seems to be interpreted as column delimiters. I tried to specify no delimiters at alI: 
I want to have the full file path and name in a single column.

 

 

 

./ICT/Linux/Raspberry Pi/AdGuardHome installatie.md

 

./ICT/Linux/Raspberry Pi/Spencer’s Desk꞉ Using a Raspberry Pi to hide from my ISP.md

 

./ICT/Linux/Raspberry Pi/Updating to Pi-hole v6 and enabling HTTPS!.md

 

./ICT/Linux/Raspberry Pi/7 Things I Wish I Knew Before Running a Pi-hole.md

 

./ICT/Linux/Raspberry Pi/AdguardTeamAdGuardHome Network-wide ads & trackers blocking DNS server.md

 

./ICT/Projects/Debian KDE op Paradigit PC/Debian KDE.md

 

./ICT/Projects/Dual boot mijn Thinkpad/Dual Boot.md

 

./ICT/Hardware/Others/Eigen Tps/Deze is om een template te testen.md

 

./ICT/Windows/Windows/Utilities/I Use These Free Windows Tools to Find What’s Slowing Down My PC.md

 

./ICT/Windows/Windows/Utilities/These productivity tools go on every PC I set up without fail.md

 

 

 

Encountered something similar with grep output containing a <colon><space> combination (after 
"created") and thus removed from the value. Here I explicitly specified only the <tab> als 
delimiter but the <colon><space> combination is also treated as a delimiter (which in this case is 
helpful, but still not what I specified.)

 

Learning grep as well:  grep -rHT 'created: ' --include=\*.md . > ~/Documents/notes-created.txt

 

 

 

 

 

./ICT/Hardware/Computers/I significantly cut my PC’s boot time and it wasn’t from disabling startup 
apps.md: created: 2025-10-19

 

./ICT/Hardware/Computers/The best new computers to replace your old Windows 10 PC.md:     created: 
2025-10-12

 

./ICT/Hardware/Others/You Need These Hacks to Stop Your SSD From Dying Prematurely.md: created: 
2025-10-22

 

./ICT/Hardware/Others/USB Type-C en USB 3.1 (USB 3.2 genoemd) uitgelegd.md:     created: 2025-10-12

 

./ICT/Windows/Windows/The Easy, Free Way to Get Windows 11 on Your Old Computer.md:    created: 
2025-10-19

 

 

 

I expect that I do something wrong, - even? - MS-XL does this better

 

 

 

Regards, Hans Troost

 

 

 


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