Excel to XML

I'm working on an XML driven Flash combobox today. That's an entirely different post. I asked for the list of mobile handsets this particular website would need to display as options in the dropdowns, and you can guess that a list like this, per carrier, would be HUGE. I get the list, and to my horror, the list is in Excel format (.xls). OH. MY. GOD. I'm going to have to wrap each of these items in XML tags.That's 3 carriers, a total of 600 handsets, 1200 times copying and pasting. My. This is gonna take me hours.

I've mentioned it before, I'm no developer. I consider myself to be a graphic designer that happens to know Flash, so often the programming side of things awakens parts of my brain that I haven't used since high school, when I took Turbo Pascal (or even younger, when I was programming "10 goto 20" statements on an Apple IIe). I generally can figure out how to make almost anything work in Flash, given that there are 1000 ways to do anything in that program. That said, I have no idea how to even approach this from a programming angle, so I'm about to start just copying and pasting.

One thing I've always prided myself on, was my Googling. Anyone can Google, but I have it down to a science. I was called Google Man in my past life, not a term I particularly care for. If it's on the web, most likely I can find it.Anyway, to my point, I found this website: http://www.digitalsurvivors.com/archives/000679.php. Basically showed me how to take an Excel list, and create an XML structure out of the data. Using a very simple formula, A1&B1&C1, etc., I was able to take these lists of 600 handsets total, and create a 3 fully valid XML files. Something I thought was going to take me 3 hours, took me 5 minutes. It's like freaking magic. This site saved my day and my sanity.

This is a great tool, something I had never even thought of using for something like this. Figured I'd share.