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This text file can be imported fairly easily into or by any of the programs
you mention. The problem is the current format of the text file. You will
need to make some medications before any of them will smoothly convert the
data so it can be used.
The easiest place to start is with Excel.
Open Excel
Click on File then Open and in "Files of type" select "All Files(*.*)"
Browse to the text file you previously saved to disk and double click on it
The Text Import Wizard will appear
Choose "Delimited" and click on next
Put a check mark next to "Space" (this is the only category that should be
checked in you case)
Put a check mark next to "Treat consecutive delimiter as one"
You'll see a preview of the finished product at the bottom of the dialog
window
If it looks correct, click on "Finish"
To make it import properly into MetaStock, you need to edit it to make the
saved file look like the below:
<ticker>,<per>,<date>,<time>,<open>,<high>,<low>,<close>,<vol>
INTC,I,04/06/2004,06:30,93.500000,93.625000,93.125000,93.500000,58000
INTC,I,04/06/2004,06:31,93.750000,93.755000,93.375000,93.500000,10000
Insert a column to the left, and put the ticker symbol in each row of that
new column
Insert a column to the right of that new column, and put the letter "I" (for
Intraday) in each row of that new column
Select the entire date column and do a "Replace" (Ctrl H) and replace all
periods (.) with a slash (/)
The time column looks OK
Since they will probably import as text because of the comma ('), highlight
the Open, High, Low, Close, Volume columns and do a "Replace" and replace
the comma (,) with nothing.
The result will appear something like the above example except you will not
see commas between the values (that comes later)
Now the header row. Make your header row (the top row) labels look exactly
like the above example (don't worry about the commas).
You're done with the reformatting.
Save the file as a CSV (comma delimited) file. Don't close Excel yet in
case you need to make corrections.
In Windows Explorer, browse to the .csv file you just created and copy it
and then paste a copy (highlight the filename and do a CRTL C then click in
a blank part of the column and do a CTRL V)
Change the file extension from .csv to .asc
I never have had much success in importing directly from a .xls file so that
is why I do it this way (MetaStock recommends it this way also)
Now open the Downloader and click on Tools then convert. Choose File Type
ASCII Text, click the browse button.
In "Files of type" choose "ASCII Files (*ASC)"
Choose your destination folder and click on the options button. Select the
settings to fit your situation there and click on OK.
Back at the "Convert Securities" dialog, click on OK.
If you have good Karma, the file will import properly the first time. If
you are like the rest of us, you may have to experiment a bit.
I know this seems very cumbersome, but, if you do this often, the Excel
portion could be fairly easily automated and run with a macro. I would get
comfortable with importing directly into MetaStock. Then I would highly
recommend trying out Mansoor's program at
http://www.geocities.com/mimansoor/. It is truly excellent and can be
completely automated. You will still however need to get the original text
file into the proper format first, which is similar to the Excel process
described above. If you know any programming languages, this entire process
is really simple code to get it properly formatted and then use Mansoor's
program for the final convert. In other words, if you know how to code you
can automate the entire process from start to beginning.
Good luck. It can be initially frustrating, but stick with it. It can be
well worth it.
Best,
Larry Carhartt
MasterDATA
The Only Source for Index & ETF Composite/Breadth Reports, Charts & Data
www.MasterDATA.com
lc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
818-701-6686
-----Original Message-----
From: equismetastock@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:equismetastock@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of pz330d
Sent: Monday, September 12, 2005 1:41 PM
To: equismetastock@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [EquisMetaStock Group] Re: How to convert this text file into
Metastock format
--- In equismetastock@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, "mrtraderx" <mrtraderx@xxxx> wrote:
> Hi, I trade forex using CMS broker and they have an option to copy
> historical price data from crosses
>
> It saves the data in a .txt file. Problem is I dont' know how to
> convert this file into .csv
>
> The text file looks like this:
>
> http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v484/camisa/cable3.jpg
>
> I tried importing it into excel
> (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v484/camisa/cable2.jpg) but
> conversion into metastock is stopped by errors
>
> Can I convert the text file into metastock???
You can use the program Convert2MS from http://www.trading-tools.com to
convert this ASCII file to MetaStock format.
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