Importing Text Files to Excel which are larger than 65,536 rows

When you try to import a Text file or an Access database table which has got more than 65,536 rows, you get it in to a ‘Capital F situation’ because Excel cant except more than 65,536 rows in a single work sheet. The only way some one would suggest will be :

1. Import the maximum number of rows which is allowed in a single work sheet first, (Which is 65536)  

2. Open a new worksheet use text Import wizard and in ‘Start Import at Row’ filed enter 32,767. (Because it’s the maximum integer value the field can accept)

3. Import it the new work sheet and manually delete the rows which are repeated.

Something which doesn’t sound geeky at all. :-)

Same thing can be achieved without much of a stress using the following macro.

Sub LargeFileImport()

      ‘Dimension Variables
      Dim ResultStr As String
      Dim FileName As String
      Dim FileNum As Integer
      Dim Counter As Double
      ‘Ask User for File’s Name
      FileName = InputBox(“Please enter the Text File’s name, e.g. test.txt”)
      ‘Check for no entry
      If FileName = “” Then End
      ‘Get Next Available File Handle Number
      FileNum = FreeFile()
      ‘Open Text File For Input
      Open FileName For Input As #FileNum
      ‘Turn Screen Updating Off
      Application.ScreenUpdating = False
      ‘Create A New WorkBook With One Worksheet In It
      Workbooks.Add template:=xlWorksheet
      ‘Set The Counter to 1
      Counter = 1
      ‘Loop Until the End Of File Is Reached
      Do While Seek(FileNum) <= LOF(FileNum)
         ‘Display Importing Row Number On Status Bar
          Application.StatusBar = “Importing Row ” & _
             Counter & ” of text file ” & FileName
          ‘Store One Line Of Text From File To Variable
          Line Input #FileNum, ResultStr
          ‘Store Variable Data Into Active Cell
          If Left(ResultStr, 1) = “=” Then
             ActiveCell.Value = “‘” & ResultStr
          Else
             ActiveCell.Value = ResultStr
          End If
         
          ‘For Excel versions before Excel 97, change 65536 to 16384
          If ActiveCell.Row = 65536 Then
             ‘If On The Last Row Then Add A New Sheet
             ActiveWorkbook.Sheets.Add
          Else
             ‘If Not The Last Row Then Go One Cell Down
             ActiveCell.Offset(1, 0).Select
          End If
          ‘Increment the Counter By 1
          Counter = Counter + 1
      ‘Start Again At Top Of ‘Do While’ Statement
      Loop
      ‘Close The Open Text File
      Close
      ‘Remove Message From Status Bar
      Application.StatusBar = False

   End Sub

More information can be found here.