Editing excel sheet that was created by Labview

[Rhinkle]

So my question is that when I edit the excel sheet that created in Labview, it say that making changes will screw up the tab delimited and might screw up the file. I go ahead and save anyways and sure enough the file is screwed up after I tried to edit it. So is there anyway around not screwing up the formatting?  If I don't mess with it and just read it back in, it reads fine. 

[RavensFan]

You lost me.  What does an Excel sheet have to do with "tab delimited".

Tab delimited implies you are working with text files.  Something you could open in a program like Notepad and can actually read what it says.

An Excel file is a proprietary file format with an .xls extension.  It is a binary file, and would be largely unreadable if you tried to open it in a program like Notepad.

How are you writing to and reading from this file?

[Rhinkle]

What I was doing was writing to an excel file, I would build the file with a .xls file extension.  I thought I could then open that file I had created and edit it in Excel.  I am guessing though when I try to save the file again even if I force an xls file extension it adds extra tabs or spaces.  I didn't know if there was anyway I could stop excel from putting those spaces, otherwise I could just write my file to a .txt file extension and get my data that way.

[RavensFan]

Were you using the Write to Spreadsheet File function?

That is the function that creates a text file in delimited format that can be imported into excel.  Even if you give it an .xls extension, it does not make it an Excel file.  It's just that Excel is smart enough to know how to import it when you double click on it.

Please search the forums on the phrase "Write to Spreadsheet File" or "Read from Spreadsheet File".

If you were doing something different, please tell us exactly what you were doing.  Saying "I was writing to an Excel File" doesn't give much detail.  Post your VI so we can see.

[Rhinkle]

I just ended up writing to a text file instead, I understand by what you mean that regardless if I slap an .xls format onto the file doesn't mean it is in Excel format.  Thanks for the help though.