Convert Excel File (xls) to tab delimited text file on AIX

UNIX for Beginners Q & A
1

Hi

i have a problem in my job

i try to convert an excel file (xls extention) to text file (tab delimited), but no result with this comand

cat xxx.xls > xxx.txt

Do you have eny idea?

PS: sorry for my english

Thanks!!

2

Either save the spreadsheet as a csv file using Excel, or use the command line version of Office Libre Calc to convert the xls file to csv.

/usr/lib/libreoffice/program $ ./scalc --help
3

thanks for your prompt response
where I have mounted unix is a production server, so I have no libreoffice instaled.
This excel is generated through a process on a Windows server where I do not have access and that is what I excel prosecute txt so we can work with our top BI

4

google 'batch convert excel to tab delimited'
There are lots of hits, although all seem to be developed to run under Windows.

5

I used Perl the last time I had to deal with Excel in a *nix environment.
You can take this script as a starting point if Perl is installed and if you're able to obtain the ParseExcel module (just replace the semicolon with a tab):

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

# convert an excel file to a .csv file

use strict;
use Spreadsheet::ParseExcel;

if ($#ARGV != 1) {
   print "\nUsage: excel2csv.pl <workbook_name> <worksheet_name>\n";
   exit;
}

my $workbook_name         = $ARGV[0];
my $worksheet_name        = $ARGV[1];

my $parser                = Spreadsheet::ParseExcel->new();
my $workbook              = $parser->parse( "$workbook_name" );
my $worksheet             = $workbook->worksheet( "$worksheet_name" );

if ( !defined $workbook ) {
   die $parser-error(), ".\n";
}

my ( $row_min, $row_max ) = $worksheet->row_range();
my ( $col_min, $col_max ) = $worksheet->col_range();
my $output                = '';
for my $row ( $row_min .. $row_max ) {
   for my $col ( $col_min .. $col_max ) {
      my $cell            = $worksheet->get_cell( $row, $col );
      if ( $cell ) {
         my $cell_value   = $cell->value();
         $cell_value      =~ s/\;/,/g;
         $output          = $output . $cell_value . ';';
      }
      else {
         $output          = $output . ';';
      }
   }
   print "$output\n";
   $output                = '';
}