Turn Financial Content from EDGAR Submissions into Editable Word Tables

Applies to: Word 2003, 2007

Word 2007

Have you ever toiled over the tasked of turning financial content of plain text EDGAR submissions into editable tables in Word? This tip helps spin typewriter straw (i.e., typed numbers aligned in Courier with spaces) into the tabled gold you need for next year's fiscal details.

Please note: Modernized HTML EDGAR postings already house financial content in discernable – albeit messy – table structures. Refer to Tip/Trick titled "Bringing Hyper-Tables Under Control" for best practice methodologies to cleanup these structures.

1. Download a plain text edition of an EDGAR 10-K or 10-Q submission from the SEC website, www.sec.gov.
2. Navigate to the "Table" tag present in the document – Home | Editing | Find, and enter <TABLE> in the "Find what:" box. Click OK.
3. Locate the line where column indicators (<C>) demark the table's structure:
   

   <S>     <C>            <C>   <C>     <C>   <C>     <C>     <C> 258508  MENLO PARK     CA    94025   SFD   5.875   5.483   $2,721.08 259118  THOUSAND OAKS  CA    91362   SFD   5.375   4.983   $1,813.01

   Copy text from this line to the end of the table.

4. Create a new, landscape document. Paste the content in this new document. If the lines wrap, adjust page margins and/or paper size until all lines maintain their single-line presence.
5. Home | Editing | Select | Select All. While maintaining the active selection, click in the ruler to insert a left-aligned tab above each left angle bracket (<).
6. Collapse only columnar spaces into Tabs using this ingenious Replace string:
   • Home | Editing | Replace
   • In the "Find what:" box type a space, followed by ^w. (The space is crucially important as it preserves the spaces between words; without it, words will become separated by tabs.)
   • In the "Replace with:" box, enter ^t.
   • Replace All.
7. Convert the remaining text into a table using Insert | Tables | Table | Convert Text to Table.
8. Save the document, then cleanup, touch-up and edit the table structure and its properties as desired. When finished, move the table back into the governing document.
9. Repeat steps for each remaining table.

APPLIES TO: Microsoft Office, Word 2007

CONVENTIONS USED: Information regarding the Word 2007 features identified in this article use the following navigating conventions:

Word 2003

Ever toiled over the task of turning the financial content in plain text EDGAR submissions' into editable tables in Word? This tip helps spin typewriter-formed numbers and spaces into the tabled-gold you need for the new year's fiscal details. Read on!

Please note: Modernized HTML EDGAR postings already house financial content in discernable -- albeit messy -- table structures. Refer to Tip/Trick titled "Bringing Hyper-Tables Under Control" for best practice methodologies to cleanup these structures.

1. Download a plain text edition of an EDGAR 10-K or 10-Q submission from the SEC web site, www.sec.gov.
2. Navigate to the "Table" tag present in the document -- Edit|Find|, and enter <TABLE> in the "Find What:" box. Click OK.
3. Locate the line where column indicators (<C>) demark the tables' structure:
   

   <S>     <C>            <C>   <C>     <C>   <C>     <C>     <C> 258508  MENLO PARK     CA    94025   SFD   5.875   5.483   $2,721.08 259118  THOUSAND OAKS  CA    91362   SFD   5.375   4.983   $1,813.01

   Copy text from this line to the end of the table.
4. Create a new, Landscape document. Paste the content inside. If lines wrap, adjust page margins and/or paper size until all lines maintain their single-line presence.
5. Edit|Select All (Ctrl-A). While maintaining the active selection, click in the ruler to insert a left-aligned tab marker above each left angle bracket (>).
6. Collapse only columnar spaces into Tabs using this ingenious Replace string:
   1. Edit|Replace
   2. In the "Find What:" box type a space, followed by ^w. (The space is crucially-important as it preserves the spaces between words; without it, words will become separated with tab markers.)
   3. In the "Replace with:" box, enter ^t.
   4. Replace All
   Search/Replace strings explained: "^w" finds 'white space' -- basically any combination of spaces, tabs or hard spaces in a document. "^t" replaces found strings with a tab.
7. Convert the remaining text into a table using Tables|Convert|Text to Table.
8. Save the document, then cleanup, touch-up and edit the table structure and its properties as desired. When finished, move table back into the governing document.
9. Repeat steps for each remaining table.

Special note: Editing tables in a separate document greatly accelerate Word's performance during this demanding editing phase: there is less document content to paginate, thus minimizing on-screen refresh events.

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