Searching through multiple Excel files or batch converting Excel files to text or HTML
Thread poster: Jean-Christophe Duc
Jean-Christophe Duc
Jean-Christophe Duc  Identity Verified
France
Local time: 09:44
English to French
+ ...
Nov 11, 2020

Hi,
does anyone know of a reliable way to search through a series of xls files or converting them to some other format to search them with a text search utility?


 
Michael Beijer
Michael Beijer  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 08:44
Member (2009)
Dutch to English
+ ...
Xbench? Nov 11, 2020

Xbench can do it easily: both search and convert them.

You'd need to convert those .xls files to .xlsx! They can then be imported into a project via Project > Properties, via 'Tab-delimited text files'.

Once they are in your project, you can then export them to a variety of formats (Tab-delimited text file, TMX, XLSX, and
... See more
Xbench can do it easily: both search and convert them.

You'd need to convert those .xls files to .xlsx! They can then be imported into a project via Project > Properties, via 'Tab-delimited text files'.

Once they are in your project, you can then export them to a variety of formats (Tab-delimited text file, TMX, XLSX, and DOCX) via: Tools > Export items (https://docs.xbench.net/user-guide/export-items/ ).

https://www.xbench.net/

Michael

[Edited at 2020-11-11 08:48 GMT]
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Tom in London
Tom in London
United Kingdom
Local time: 08:44
Member (2008)
Italian to English
Mac Nov 11, 2020

Jean-Christophe Duc wrote:

Hi,
does anyone know of a reliable way to search through a series of xls files or converting them to some other format to search them with a text search utility?


If you're on a Mac, Spotlight will do this for you. I use Spotlight all the time to search through old files archived away on my hard drive, including xls files, to find terms I had used in old translations I'd forgotten about.

Or you could use EasyFind. https://www.devontechnologies.com/apps/freeware

[Edited at 2020-11-11 08:41 GMT]


 
Jean-Christophe Duc
Jean-Christophe Duc  Identity Verified
France
Local time: 09:44
English to French
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Xbench Nov 11, 2020

yes and no, it can go through some Excel files, but not all of them, so the results are often incomplete/unreliable.

 
Michael Beijer
Michael Beijer  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 08:44
Member (2009)
Dutch to English
+ ...
TMLookup (freeware) Nov 11, 2020

Another great tool is https://farkastranslations.com/tmlookup.php … which can also import XLS. If you haven't tried it, I highly recommend you do (if you are on Windows of course). It's absolutely amazing and able to index GIGANTIC collections and concordance search through them very well.

Note that in both TMLookup and Xbench, what you get is a proper bilingual concorda
... See more
Another great tool is https://farkastranslations.com/tmlookup.php … which can also import XLS. If you haven't tried it, I highly recommend you do (if you are on Windows of course). It's absolutely amazing and able to index GIGANTIC collections and concordance search through them very well.

Note that in both TMLookup and Xbench, what you get is a proper bilingual concordance search (like in CAT tool), which is way more useful than a desktop search solution like Windows search, Spotlight (Mac), etc.

~

see: https://www.proz.com/forum/cat_tools_technical_help/279770-tmlookup-page4.html?print=1

"Seasons updatings 2015-12-23

Well, it's that time of year, so here's a gift:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/16377950/TMLookup_1.4_win.zip

From the changelog:
New in 1.4:
- Added xls import (throws errors if any lines have empty cells)
- Ctrl-J shows/hides source column (only works correctly if source is the last column in the table)
- Ctrl-U shows context
- Minor match highlighting fixes
- Alphabetical hit sorting added, see setup file
- PgUp/PgDn and Ctrl-Home/Ctrl-End functionality added
- Thanks to an SQLite version update to 3.8.10, the see context option now produces instant results even on large DBs."

[Edited at 2020-11-11 08:56 GMT]
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Michael Beijer
Michael Beijer  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 08:44
Member (2009)
Dutch to English
+ ...
check with Xbench support Nov 11, 2020

Jean-Christophe Duc wrote:

yes and no, it can go through some Excel files, but not all of them, so the results are often incomplete/unreliable.


You might want to check with Xbench support, who have been really responsive whenever I have a question.

It could also be due to how your Excel files are formatted. That is, the number and type of columns/column headers.


 
Samuel Murray
Samuel Murray  Identity Verified
Netherlands
Local time: 09:44
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
Agent Ransack Nov 11, 2020

Jean-Christophe Duc wrote:
Does anyone know of a reliable way to search through a series of XLS files...?


Agent Ransack can do it. However, note that the cells in Excel files may not be in numerical order when searched directly in a text search tool -- sometimes they come up in the order in which they were most recently edited. So, cells from various worksheets may appear "together" in the search result.


 
Michael Beijer
Michael Beijer  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 08:44
Member (2009)
Dutch to English
+ ...
what format are the xls files in? Nov 11, 2020

Jean-Christophe Duc wrote:

Hi,
does anyone know of a reliable way to search through a series of xls files or converting them to some other format to search them with a text search utility?


Forgot to ask... what format are the xls files in? Are they bilingual (with columns: source, target, notes, etc..), which is what I was assuming when I recommended a specialised bilingual concordancer.

If the data isn't bilingual, I'd recommend desktop search tools like Tom and Samuel. However, in that case I would recommend dtSearch (https://dtsearch.com/ ).


 
Jean-Christophe Duc
Jean-Christophe Duc  Identity Verified
France
Local time: 09:44
English to French
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Agent Ransack Nov 11, 2020

Samuel Murray wrote:

Jean-Christophe Duc wrote:
Does anyone know of a reliable way to search through a series of XLS files...?


Agent Ransack can do it. However, note that the cells in Excel files may not be in numerical order when searched directly in a text search tool -- sometimes they come up in the order in which they were most recently edited. So, cells from various worksheets may appear "together" in the search result.


Thanks, File Locator appears to work for me.


 
Jean-Christophe Duc
Jean-Christophe Duc  Identity Verified
France
Local time: 09:44
English to French
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
DtSearch Nov 11, 2020

Michael Beijer wrote:

Jean-Christophe Duc wrote:

Hi,
does anyone know of a reliable way to search through a series of xls files or converting them to some other format to search them with a text search utility?


Forgot to ask... what format are the xls files in? Are they bilingual (with columns: source, target, notes, etc..), which is what I was assuming when I recommended a specialised bilingual concordancer.

If the data isn't bilingual, I'd recommend desktop search tools like Tom and Samuel. However, in that case I would recommend dtSearch (https://dtsearch.com/ ).


I need to go through a large number of xls with comments, notes, etc with loads of columns. Not at all a bilingual file (in this case creating a MT base or exporting to Xbench format would work.)

dtSearch appears to be quite expensive though.


 


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Searching through multiple Excel files or batch converting Excel files to text or HTML






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