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Green hexagon containing white bars stacked vertically and descending in size followed by a white box with with green bars separated into two columns. Text To Columns Tool

One Tool Example

Text to Columns has a One Tool Example. Go to Sample Workflows to learn how to access this and many other examples directly in Alteryx Designer.

Use Text To Columns to take the text in one column and split the string value into separate, multiple columns (or rows), based on a single or multiple delimiters.

Configure the Tool

  1. Select the Column to split.

  2. Delimiters: Enter the delimiters to use to split the data. Each character is treated independently, meaning you can't delimit on a word. To split data on a word, use the RegEx tool. You can use individual characters or the white space characters from this table:

    White Space

    White Space Character

    Tab

    \t

    New Line

    \n

    Space

    \s

    Space or Tab

    \s\t

  3. Choose the split method:

    • Split to columns: Split a single column of data at each instance of the specified delimiter into multiple columns.

      • Number of columns: Set how many columns to create.

      • Extra characters: Let Alteryx know what you want it to do with any extra characters left over. Go to Alteryx Community Tool Mastery Article for tips and tricks including how to find out how many columns your data will be parsed into.

        • Leave extra in last column: Data that extends past the split is appended to the value in the last column.

        • Drop extra with warning: Data that extends past the split is dropped and a warning is generated indicating that there was excess information.

        • Drop extra without warning: Data that extends past the split is dropped and no warning is generated.

        • Error: Data that extends past the split causes an error and the workflow stops processing.

      • Output root name: Enter the name for the newly generated columns. The new columns are named as the root name with a serially increasing integer appended.

    • Split to rows: Split a single column of data at each instance of the specified delimiter into multiple rows. Use a key column in your record so you don't lose track of which value came from which row.

  4. In Advanced Options, select delimiters to ignore:

    • Ignore Delimiters in Quotes

    • Ignore Delimiters in Single Quotes

    • Ignore Delimiters in Parentheses

    • Ignore Delimiters in Brackets

    • Skip Empty Columns

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