Using Notepad to create an Excel spreadsheet

This tip is created with Microsoft Windows 7 and Microsoft Excel 2007

If you ever wanted to create an Excel spreadsheet without having to deal with the complexity of Microsoft Excel, you can use Notepad (which is normally installed on all Microsoft computers).  The easy way to get to Notepad is to go to Start --> Run.  In the run command box, type notepad and then hit Enter key.

 

I created 4 rows in the Notepad.  Everything is also separated by commas.  The first line creates three columns named "Date", "Number", and "Name".  The 3 lines below is the data for the columns.  The commas represent the lines between each column if you were to see them in Microsoft Excel.  Go ahead and click File and then Save As.

 

 I saved the notepad as "New Notepad.csv".  The CSV extension means Comma Separated Value.  Since everything is separated by commas, this extension makes sense to use.  If you used TXT which means text file, Microsoft Excel would not recognize it (unless you imported it into Excel, but that is a different topic).  When there is a CSV at the end of the filename, Microsoft Excel is able to see that it uses commas to separate the values.  Let's open it up in Excel and see what happens.

As you can see, Microsoft Excel recognized the file and created a spreadsheet from the file.  From here, you can save the spreadsheet with an Excel extension.  This is a great way to create something quickly without having to tab over between the columns.

Notepad is also a great tool to just jot notes down without having to open up Microsoft Word.  There are always new and exciting ways to do things.