Imposing Character limitations

[anthony132]

I'm trying to upload a large Calc file onto a website, but they have a limit of eighty characters for my Title column. Each cell is fill with text. How do I reduce all of them to 80 characters or less in one swoop. I'm very novice to spreadsheets of any kind so forgive me if the terms I'm using aren't correct. I'm trying my best to explain my problem.

[ken johnson]

Maybe in a spare column use =LEFT(A1;80) filled down to the last row with a title then use Copy/Paste Special to paste only the Text over the titles that I have assumed start in A1.

Ken Johnson
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[anthony132]

Sorry, I'm not sure what you told me to do. Are you talking about creating the same text as the text that will populate every cell under the header labled "Title"? Each cell's text is unique to the product it is describing. I need the cells to keep that uniqueness. If I can't shorten the characters in each cell all at once then maybe there is the way to just click on a cell, and have the program tell me how many characters are contained within. If it is over eighty then I need to cut a few words out. Please clarify what you meant or let me know if there is another solution you have. Thanks for your help.

[scsisys]

The formula , in an adjacent column, will in essence copy the first 80 characters in
A1 to , say , B1.

=LEFT(A1;80) ; as the formula is copied down in Col. B, the A1 cell reference will
change to cell A2 , then A3 and so on all the way to the end row of Col. A that has
data.

What ever column you put the formula in, make sure its' column width is such that
the 80 characters will fit; otherwise, the row height will adjust higher.
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OO 3.2.1
Win XP /SP3

[ken johnson]

See attached doc (Reduce Titles to 80 characters.ods)...
http://www.mediafire.com/view/?wdrhlv859hx1kuq
On the first sheet A2:A8 have text which may or may not contain more than 80 characters.
On the second sheet I have assumed column G is spare and have entered =LEFT(A2;80) into G2 then dragged the G2 fill handle (little black blob in G2's bottom-right corner when G2 is the only selected cell) down to G8 (scsisys has described what happen there).
These formulae return the first 80 characters of the column A cell on the same row.
On the third sheet I have copied G2:G8 then selected A2 then used Paste Special (Ctrl+Shift+V) to paste only the results of the column G formulae over the top of the original texts.
I have included a picture of the Paste Special dialogue to show that only the "Text" option should be ticked.
On the fourth sheet the final result is shown after the column G formulae have been deleted.

I have used multiple sheets only to illustrate the steps to follow. Of course it should all be done on the one sheet.

Ken Johnson
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[karolus]

Hi
Copy your Data to the next sheet and:

→search and replace

search for:
^(.{80}).*$
replace with:
$1
with Option [x]Regular Expression

Karo