Remove an exact repeated page header

Headers in the middle of your data

Multi-page reports print the column names at the top of every page. Copy those pages into one block of text, or join several exported files, and the header line reappears between records. In a spreadsheet those rows break sorting and filtering, and a column of amounts with the word Amount in the middle is no longer a number column.

Repeated header cleanup removes later rows that equal the header row you choose. It compares the whole row, cell by cell, after trimming spaces at the start and end of each cell. A row is never removed because one cell happens to contain a column name.

Cleaning the Name and Amount example

The page example has four source rows: Name and Amount, Paper and 12.50, Name and Amount again, and Pens and 3.25. With Header row set to 1, the cleaner removes source row 3 and leaves 3 output rows: the header, Paper and Pens. Removed header rows shows 1.

Only rows below the chosen header are compared, and the header itself always stays in the output.

Steps for a joined export

• Paste the joined pages into Table text and choose the Delimiter.
• Enter the position of the real header in Header row, counting from 1. If the file starts with a title line, that is usually 2.
• Press Calculate and compare Removed header rows with the number of page breaks in the source. Five pages should usually mean four removed rows.
• Look at the records just before and after each removed position in the preview to make sure no data row went with it.
• Use Download (CSV) for the cleaned table; your pasted text is not changed.

When the count is lower than expected

• A repeated header in different letter case, such as NAME and AMOUNT, is not an exact match and stays.
• A repeated header with an extra or missing column, or with a page number in one of its cells, has a different shape and stays.
• A header spread over two lines on some pages will not match the single-line header.
• In each case, fix the row in a copy so it matches exactly, or remove it by hand once you have confirmed what it is.

The same problem in the app

When the Tablora app reads a multi-page PDF, each page's table comes out separately, so repeated headers do not end up in the middle of one grid. Merge pages joins tables with the same column count and drops the first row of each later table when it matches the first table's header. Turn on Header row for the first table before merging.

Original synthetic example

Browser header row

1

Removed source rows

3

Output rows

3

Tools

• repeated-header-cleanup