Changing EDI files by opening in XLS.

Question

I have a EDI file ...i want to test it ....so when I open it it opens in an EXCEL file,....there is some data I want to change....

BGS~EGI~PG~265\TIA~5008~~~16796~GA\BGS~EGI~PG~360\TIA~5008~~~22827~GA\BGS~EGI~PG~528\TIA~5008~~~18304~GA\

TO

BGS~EGI~PG~265\TIA~5008~~~0~GA\BGS~EGI~PG~360\TIA~5008~~~0~GA\BGS~EGI~PG~528\TIA~5008~~~0~GA\

Can it be done on EXCEL and the changes reflect in the EDI sheet?If do that in EXCEL and save ....how to save it?I did that but did not know which format to Save....xlt/xls/ etc. I save it as .xlt format.Is that the correct way?

Further the cursers just goes hay way when i click on a cell. How to control the cell?

pLEASE HELP

Answer 1

ATorras is on the right path. EDI is sort of a text format. I'd call it more of a binary format. (There's also XML EDI, but that's not what you're dealing with here.)

Depending on the size of the file, you may run into line limits in some editors. Others may be adding line breaks that may or may not cause issues with some EDI translators.

You can have EDI files with binary delimiters (such as segment terminators). This is not common, and it doesn't look like the case with your test data.

The file extension only matters to the translator or other software that's trying to find/send the EDI file. Basically you don't want to change the original extension.

I don't remember what the standards are for Unicode, etc., so that may be a concern in some cases. You'll want to preserve whatever encoding the original file uses.

Short version: Most of the time you can get away with using Notepad, vi, etc. Sometimes you can't. If you have access to dedicated EDI tools for parsing/editing/translating, use those. Never use Excel or Word. Always make a backup of your original first. Verify that your trading partner is getting what you expect.