title: Excel spreadsheet to COBOL program
body: <p>I have a task to migrate an Excel Macro(Which basically does screen scraping) to a COBOL program.</p>
  
  <p>Problem is that the user wants to give the input in excel format , I am stumped as to how to convert an excel file as a readable input to a TN3270 Mainframe system.</p>
  
  <p>Some have suggested to do something called as flat file conversion which I am not sure how to do.</p>
  
  <p>Is there a easier method to extract inputs from an Excel spreadsheet to run a COBOL program on a TN3270 Mainframe.</p>
  
  <p>The below is the screenshot of the tool which is to be converted.</p>
  
  <p><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/6Z54j.png" alt="enter image description here"></p>
  
  <p>According to my knowledge, we can convert it into a flat file and read the strings using delimiter(|) but I want to know if there is a better way.</p>