Thanks to all for your helpful replies. In my initial email I did mistakenly write "\n" when I had correctly been using "\n" in my code.
The key for me seem to be using the approach Bill suggested, i.e., writing to a binary file. If I simply do write.csv(d, "d.text.csv", row.names = FALSE, col.names = FALSE) Then the newlines are not represented within the cell, but create new cells, which is the problem I was originally having. I do wonder what ASCII character is represented in Windows with alt-Enter. I'm actually working in a Linux environment, its my boss who uses Windows. I was trying to find a text only output that would do the trick. From my web search I learned that using "alt", especially with the number pad, allows for the entry of all sorts on unusual ASCII characters. I found a couple tables of them, but none referenced alt-Enter. Someone on a MS help site suggested using the ASCII numerics "10" or "13", which I believe are just new-line and line-feed. Those didn't work for me. I guess I'll be content with having a working solution and leave the mystery unsolved. Thanks Bill! Mark Mark W. Kimpel MD ** Neuroinformatics ** Dept. of Psychiatry Indiana University School of Medicine 15032 Hunter Court, Westfield, IN 46074 (317) 490-5129 Work, & Mobile & VoiceMail (317) 399-1219 Skype No Voicemail please On Wed, Oct 20, 2010 at 2:13 PM, William Dunlap <wdun...@tibco.com> wrote: > > > From: r-help-boun...@r-project.org > > [mailto:r-help-boun...@r-project.org] On Behalf Of William Dunlap > > Sent: Wednesday, October 20, 2010 10:47 AM > > To: Duncan Murdoch; Mark Kimpel > > Cc: r-help@r-project.org > > Subject: Re: [R] ascii or regex code for alt-enter for Excel > > > > I think Excel wants a "\n" for newlines > > in a text cell entry but "\r\n" to separate > > rows of a csv file. You may have to open > > the file in binary mode and put in the \r\n > > at line ends by hand to achieve this from R, > > as it tranlates all "\n"s to "\r\n"s when > > writing them to a file. > > > > ("\n" is not the same as "/n" in R.) > > I omitted an example: > d <- data.frame(nLines=c(3,2,1), > entry=c("three\nline\nentry", > "two line\nentry", > "one line entry")) > theFile <- file("c:/temp/d.csv", open="wb") # write in binary mode > write.csv(d, theFile, eol="\r\n") > close(theFile) > > Now c:/temp/d.csv in Excel and you should see the > multiline text entries. (Expand the cells and/or > formula entry area to see all the lines in an entry.) > > > Bill Dunlap > > Spotfire, TIBCO Software > > wdunlap tibco.com > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > > From: r-help-boun...@r-project.org > > > [mailto:r-help-boun...@r-project.org] On Behalf Of Duncan Murdoch > > > Sent: Wednesday, October 20, 2010 10:29 AM > > > To: Mark Kimpel > > > Cc: r-help@r-project.org > > > Subject: Re: [R] ascii or regex code for alt-enter for Excel > > > > > > On 20/10/2010 1:04 PM, Mark Kimpel wrote: > > > > I need to write a table that can be opened in Excel or > > > OpenOffice such that > > > > there are newlines embedded within cells. > > > > > > > > After much Googling and futzing, I can't figure out how to > > > do this. The way > > > > to do this within Excel is alt-Enter and I've tried '/n', > > > '/n/r', '/r/n' per > > > > some web suggestions without luck. > > > > > > You may need to ask an Excel expert or MS tech support. What > > > character > > > is Excel looking for? > > > > > > (Or it is possible that you have what you need, but used > > > forward slashes > > > when you should have used backslashes. The newline character > > > is \n, not > > > /n, in R.) > > > > > > Duncan Murdoch > > > > > > > Anybody know what character or ASCII code to use for this? > > > > > > > > Thanks, > > > > > > > > Mark > > > > > > > > Mark W. Kimpel MD ** Neuroinformatics ** Dept. of Psychiatry > > > > Indiana University School of Medicine > > > > > > > > 15032 Hunter Court, Westfield, IN 46074 > > > > > > > > (317) 490-5129 Work,& Mobile& VoiceMail > > > > (317) 399-1219 Skype No Voicemail please > > > > > > > > [[alternative HTML version deleted]] > > > > > > > > ______________________________________________ > > > > R-help@r-project.org mailing list > > > > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help > > > > PLEASE do read the posting guide > > > http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html > > > > and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. > > > > > > ______________________________________________ > > > R-help@r-project.org mailing list > > > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help > > > PLEASE do read the posting guide > > > http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html > > > and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. > > > > > > > ______________________________________________ > > R-help@r-project.org mailing list > > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help > > PLEASE do read the posting guide > > http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html > > and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code. > > > [[alternative HTML version deleted]] ______________________________________________ R-help@r-project.org mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
