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PowerBI123456's avatar
PowerBI123456
Post Partisan
4 years ago

Combing TXT files with different columns

Hi - I am trying to combine several TXT files that have different columns, so not all the columns are being captured. I found a few ways of doing it, but that assumes the header is already establishe...
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TheoC's avatar
TheoC
Community Champion
4 years ago

Hi PowerBI123456 

 

In Power Query, you can use Merge to bring them altogether.  Basically, when you have one or more columns that you want to bring together, you can merge them.  

 

Let me know if you want me to provide further steps.


Theo 🙂

 

PowerBI123456's avatar
PowerBI123456
Post Partisan
4 years ago

Yes, please! How do you do that exactly? Thank you so much?

    • PowerBI123456's avatar
      PowerBI123456
      Post Partisan
      4 years ago

      TheoC  Thanks! but this requires me bringing in one file at a time right? The folder of files I am bringing will have a new file each week. 

      • TheoC's avatar
        TheoC
        Community Champion
        4 years ago

        PowerBI123456 no, not at all. Just dump the new file into the folder.  Below is a screenshot of a folder I use as source for a specific client.  Each file has different number of columns, some the same and some different.  They're monthly management reports and I generate it, dump it in the folder used as source then move on to the next.  

         

        Another client report I've built generates CSV files every 15 mins from an FTP Server and saves them down to a specific location. There are 15,000+ files in this example and over 8GB of data. CSV are pretty much identical to TXTs in their format for Power BI. 

        Hope this helps and provides context 🙂