Excel files saved out as SYLK will have quotation marks around the contents of any cell that contains a comma. This can be a problem when importing data into ClarisWorks, MacProject II, and Filemaker Pro.
If your Excel file has the data under the columns First, Last, Party, Motto like this:
First Last Party Motto
George Bush Republican If you can't join em, beat em.
then it will export as: George,Bush, Republican," If you can't join em, beat em."
1. To remove the quotation marks, open the SYLK file in a word processor, search for the quotations and replace them with nothing. You will also need to remove the comma from that field, or else it will be imported as two fields because the comma will be seen as a delimiter. Or, instead of removing the comma from the field, you could replace it with an unusual constant such as "XXX" and then replace the constant later once you have imported the file into its destination application.
2. Then export the file as text. The XTND filter for SYLK looks into the file itself to see if it is a SYLK file so you don't have to worry about the file being saved as text rather than SYLK.