open office spreadsheet help needed please

[Smokeyone]

Did a complete vista fresh install yesterday and saved my spreadsheets to a spare hd. Transferred them back and the
columns have merged themselves -
Three columns A B C

Horse Price W or L

It's all now in one column like below

Old Nag,1.17,"W"

Hope someone knows how to put them back.
Thanks

[Win2Win]

Try using the IMPORT function

[Smokeyone]

Thanks for the suggestion but no luck.
Cannot face amending hundreds of entries manualy - might have to start from scratch.
Cheers

[mathare]

Does Open Office support the LEFT(), MID() and RIGHT() text manipulation functions? Use those (in conjunction with a FIND() if that is supported) to split the text string at the commas

[Godspot]

If you've still got the originals - or even not - try copying & pasting as a Word Doc Table before uploading (& or copy/pasting) to Vista -

or

try copying/importing into a Google Doc spreadsheet first... [if do, Format (123 - More Formats button) the SS to accept everything as Plain Text to start with]

I'm gradually Google Doc-ing everything as beginning to prefer life in the clouds

[Smokeyone]

Might have sussed it but it is thanks to everyone's help that I found some ideas.
Please explain about Google Docs....

Anyway - here goes

Highlight column A
then
Data Text to Columns
Tick comma box
You then have three columns but the W still has the quotes like this "W"
Never fear click Okay

Now highlight column C with the "W"
then
Data Text to Columns again
Highlight the Text Delimiter drop down box to show the quotes
Click Okay

Almost done - although the Open Office spreadsheet showed all was well when
I tried using the file in the Staking Machine the columns reverted back to just one
column again so I copied and pasted the three columns on to a new spreadsheet
with a new name and all seems fine now...

I spoke too soon - although I can fix the formatting - the columns revert back to a single column after saving - just found this out - wonder why it is doing this after my fresh install ......