Add an option from reports to only copy the line items
Please consider adding an option from the [Copy] and/or [Save] button in reports, to allow copy/save of ONLY the line items.
As it is, it seems to me that the [Copy] and [Save] options aren't really helpful except in limited instances; e.g., a user wants to paste a truly exact copy of the report into some word processing document. Attempts to paste/open data in spreadsheet results in everything defaulting to a text entry rather than numbers since the content includes report headers, etc. Going this route requires a lot of work on the part of the user if the intent is only to get the line item data into a spreadsheet for further analysis or manipulation -- which, to me, seems like a more likely scenario.
If an option to copy/save ONLY the line items were available, this could be pasted to/opened in the spreadsheet directly and reduce the amount of twiddling the user has to do in order to do that further analysis or manipulation.
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1 Posted by Stuart Beesley ... on 24 May, 2025 06:17 AM
What version of MD?
Have you tried the copy/save CSV formatted for excel options? These are designed to preserve the numbers.
There is a code proposal being reviewed for a proper data export….. let’s see.
2 Posted by ironrod3 on 25 May, 2025 06:47 AM
Answers in red, below...
--
Rod Barnes
3 Posted by Stuart Beesley ... on 25 May, 2025 08:23 AM
You can’t do that by email. You have to click the line and reply online.
The key is “please reply above this line”
4 Posted by ironrod3 on 25 May, 2025 02:54 PM
Oh, right; forgot...
MoneyDance v2024.4 (5253)
Yes, I tried the various copy/save options including the one specified for Excel. But, as I mentioned, all of these options include the report header and other formatted text that causes the entire content to be considered text when being pasted in or loaded from a file. So even numbers in the line items are defaulted to text and the user is left having to go through for each column and change that target format to numeric instead of text. Without this, it all comes in as text and the numbers -- well, aren't numbers, they're just text and calculations cannot be done on them.
5 Posted by Stuart Beesley ... on 03 Jul, 2025 10:34 PM
A few points.
Which reports do you currently try to export to excel?
have you tried saving to file and then using excel, use the file import wizard rather than any other method?
can you upload a sample csv file created by MD? It’s important that your spreadsheet tool has not touched this file. I want to see what formats you are getting.
6 Posted by ironrod3 on 05 Jul, 2025 05:46 PM
I'm using LibreCalc which is where I'm having that experience. I tried both of the save options "Comma-delimited (CSV)" as well as the and the "Comma-delimited (CSV, Encoded for Excel)" option. Same results from either.
But your question led me to try opening this with a copy of Excel and they work fine there. I played around with a copy of the save file and found that it is the format (nnnnn,$) that is confusing it during import; it doesn't recognize that as a valid number format. If I edit a copy of the file and remove the ",$" from the numeric fields, they are recognized as numbers. But I still get all the noise with the dates and headers that I don't see when I import via Excel.
Comparing the output of the two options (CSV vs, Excel-encoded CSV), the files are identical so I'm unclear what the difference should be for taking one option vs. the other.
I It would be nice to have an option that just outputs the raw data from the row/column without the headers and such.
7 Posted by Stuart Beesley ... on 05 Jul, 2025 08:50 PM
I’m led to believe that there are improvements in this area coming in 2025. You’ll have to wait until they are ‘announced’.
I’ll ask again: “ Which reports do you currently try to export to excel?”
8 Posted by ironrod3 on 05 Jul, 2025 09:20 PM
I don't "currently try to export to excel" any reports. I only recently began trying this option to import the "Income and Expenses" report into LibreCalc. I encountered this issue and then created this post. I do not use excel (except on occasion) and use primarily LibreCalc.
I went on to try with the "Cash Flow" and the "Income and Expenses Detailed" reports and those seem to mostly import fine into LibreCalc. At least, it recognizes the numbers and they come in as numeric fields.
9 Posted by Stuart Beesley ... on 05 Jul, 2025 09:33 PM
Ok. Forget the “excel” bit of that sentence. So it sounds like you use and want the I/e and cash flow reports to be exportable. .
10 Posted by ironrod3 on 05 Jul, 2025 09:37 PM
That was what I was targeting, yes.
11 Posted by -Kevin N. on 05 Jul, 2025 11:46 PM
Hi ironrod3,
As far as numbers being imported as text, can you confirm that you are selecting the option to 'Detect special numbers' when importing the CSV into Calc?
-Kevin N. (not a member of Moneydance support)
12 Posted by ironrod3 on 07 Jul, 2025 12:21 PM
Yes, the "Detect Special Numbers" option is enabled by default and I haven't changed it.
13 Posted by ironrod3 on 08 Jul, 2025 03:10 AM
Those were the reports I was working with in this attempt, yes. I encountered this issue -- as I remember (it's been a while) -- in my attempt to get a report by category but couldn't find a way to do so. (Which seemed odd given categories are a standard field in a transaction.) So, I was looking for a way to get the data into another tool.
--
Rod Barnes