Re: [EquisMetaStock Group] Re: data conversion, MetaStock Email Archive

You can convert excel dates into YYYYMMDD by

1. creating a new column with the formula below, then copy and paste to all rows)
=YEAR(B1)*10000+ MONTH(B1) *100+DAY( B1)
2. then copy and paste special (values only) into the date column
3. then format the column as a number with zero decimal places
4. then delete the column you originally created.

Alternatively, perhaps consider looking at a data vendor that does all of this for you.

-- 
Best regards,
Richard Dale.
Norgate Investor Services
- Premium quality Stock, Futures and Foreign Exchange Data for
  markets in Australia, Asia, Canada, Europe, UK & USA -
www.premiumdata. net

On 28/11/2008 8:25 AM, keith wrote:

Hello, I want to do some backtesting and recently bought some data from  eddata.com -- which turned out to be faulty---they promised to fix it weeks ago so don't deal from them at all

they're hopeless and unreliable.

so someone sent me some data as an .xls file--- but I can't convert it to Metastock .

I only use the Downloader every couple of years for conversions and it's always a problem to remember exactly how to do it--- I find the Downloader "help" section most unhelpful --

I convertedsome Metastock data back to .txt to check the format and tried to copy that into mine but am having trouble with Excel too.

for some crazy reason, Excel won't allow me to save the date format into YYYYMMDD as it should be? when I save it, it then switches back to DDMMYYYY .

then, when I save the data as a csv file ( comma delimited txt file ), it saves it as an .xls as under

it will save as a space delimited file but the Downloader won't read that.

this data may get garbled in transmission so I've also attached a copy

just as well I have plenty of hair or else i'd have pulled it out by now -- I've spent hours on this --such a simple thing and such hasles.

if someone could explain what I should do or point me in the right direction, i'd appreciate it.

thanks Keith

<TICKER>, <DTDDMMYYYY>, <OPEN>, <HIGH>, <LOW>, <CLOSE>, <VOLUME>, <OPEN INTEREST>

GC                1/1/1975 191 191.5 182.7 183.9 512 237

GC 1/2/1975 184 184.8 173.9 175.1 294 209

GC 1/3/1975 175.5 178.5 172.5 177.5 633 758