Guidance on creating a Splits Sheet Spreadsheet

To save the data use the 'File - Save As' command on your Browser. Save the file as a TEXT (.TXT) file, NOT as a HTML file.

Open the file with your favorite Spreadsheet - remember to select 'Files of Type' to be Text Files or All Files (MS Excel will automatically recognise that it is a text file and start the Text Import Wizard).

Select 'Delimited' rather than 'Fixed Width' - click Next.

Make sure that the Delimiter TAB is ticked, but 'Treat Consecutive Delimiters as One' MUST be unticked - click Next.

VERY IMPORTANT - Scroll down in the Data Preview window until you can see the first swimmers, then select the column containing the Year of Birth, (click at the top of the column where its labeled General). The column will highlight. Then change its 'Column Data Format' from 'General' to 'Text'. If you forget to do this then Excel will probably interpret all the years as negative numbers and remove the brackets - its an accounting practice!

Click Finish and the file will be imported into a new spreadsheet window. You should already see the basic layout taking shape. Simply apply a few basic 'tidying up' formatting operations, for example:

Set Column Widths (suggest Col A = 5, Col B = 22, Col C = 5, Col D = 9)

Make the top 2 rows Bold and make the top 3 rows 'Title rows' so they print at the top of each page. Don't know how? - use File - Page Set up - Sheet, 'Rows to repeat at top' entry, (set to $1:$3)

Set print margins to suit your printer (and to make it fit across just one page) and turn Gridlines on. Don't know how? - use File - Page Set up - Sheet, and tick 'Gridlines' in the Print section.

Then save as an Excel worksheet (file type .xls) and try a printout. We hope you find this useful.