_|    _|_|    _|      _|    _|_|    
      _|  _|    _|  _|_|  _|_|  _|    _|  
      _|  _|    _|  _|  _|  _|  _|    _|  
_|    _|  _|    _|  _|      _|  _|    _|  
  _|_|      _|_|    _|      _|    _|_|    
                                          

🔥 ColumnForge

Batch-split spreadsheet columns into clean .txt files — one folder, one command.

Made by JOMO · @themostjomo

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⚡ What it does

Point ColumnForge at a folder full of .xlsx files. For every spreadsheet inside, it instantly creates a matching output-<filename>/ folder containing one .txt file per column — named after the column header, one value per line.

No clicking through Excel. No manual copy-pasting. One command, batch-processed.

📂 spreadsheets/
├── bitcoin.xlsx
├── eth.xlsx
└── sol.xlsx

⬇️ run ColumnForge ⬇️

📂 spreadsheets/
├── bitcoin.xlsx
├── eth.xlsx
├── sol.xlsx
├── 📁 output-bitcoin/
│   ├── Date.txt
│   ├── Price.txt
│   └── Volume.txt
├── 📁 output-eth/
│   ├── Date.txt
│   ├── Price.txt
│   └── Volume.txt
└── 📁 output-sol/
    ├── Date.txt
    ├── Price.txt
    └── Volume.txt

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🚀 Quick start

1. Clone it

git clone https://github.com/themostjomo/columnforge.git
cd columnforge

2. Install dependencies

pip install -r requirements.txt

💡 macOS / Homebrew users: if you hit an externally-managed-environment error, use a virtual environment instead:

python3 -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt

3. Run it on a folder of spreadsheets

python columnforge.py /path/to/your/spreadsheets

That's it. 🎉

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🛠️ Usage

python columnforge.py <folder> [--sheet SHEET_NAME] [--version]

Argument	Required	Description
folder	✅	Folder containing one or more .xlsx files
--sheet	❌	Sheet name or index to read (default: first sheet)
--version	❌	Print the current ColumnForge version

Examples

# Process every spreadsheet in the current folder
python columnforge.py .

# Process a specific folder
python columnforge.py ~/Desktop/crypto-data

# Use a specific sheet across all files
python columnforge.py ~/Desktop/crypto-data --sheet "Sheet2"

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✨ Features

• 📦 Batch by default — drop in 1 or 100 spreadsheets, same command
• 🗂️ Auto-organized output — each spreadsheet gets its own clean output folder
• 🧹 Safe filenames — illegal characters in column headers get sanitized automatically
• 🔁 Duplicate-proof — repeated column names get _1, _2, etc. instead of overwriting
• 🛡️ Fault-tolerant — one bad file won't stop the whole batch
• 🚫 Ignores Excel lock files — skips ~$file.xlsx temp files automatically

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📋 Requirements

• Python 3.9+
• pandas
• openpyxl

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📄 License

Released under the MIT License.

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🐍 Built with Python by JOMO