I need to prepare a dataset, which will be much easier using e.g. Excel. Then I want to import and use it in Mathematica. One row in the dataset would look like this in Mathematica:
{"A2",{"a2","b3"},"K6",{"a6","b2"}}
When doing this in Excel, it would look like this.
However, importing this into Mathematica produces:
{"A2","{"a2","b3"}","K6","{"a6","b2"}"}
The problem is the curly brackets, which get some extra quotation mark. I need these curly brackets in several columns. Using a combination of ToExpression and then back to ToString becomes very clumsy, in particular as during such a procedure a2 gets a space in between etc. Ideally, I'd like to import it as typed in Excel. I tried various cell formats in Excel without success. I also could not find a way in Mathematica for a plain import. Even exporting and then importing it as .csv doesn't get rid of this.
{"A2",{"a2","b3"},"K6",{"a6","b2"}}
$\endgroup$ – GenericAccountName May 15 '18 at 7:14