Convert copy and pasted plaintext zendesk support ticket data into a html table - you can then open it in excel and manipulate the data :) how to use: copy the body of the helpdesk ticket and paste into a plain text file called ticket.txt, then run this script and capture the output. Save as .xls to open in excel

zendesk2html.py

#!/usr/bin/env python
import textwrap

def format_header(date, user):
  output = "<tr><td>{date}</td><td>{user}</td><td><pre>".format(
    date=date,
    user=user,
  )
  return output

with open('ticket.txt') as f:
  content = f.readlines()


output="<table border='1'>"

# first record does not contain 'user' so we need skip one
# place behind so that elements appear in front of the cursor
# in the correct position
i = -1
transcript = []
record = ""
while i < len(content):

  # records break on 'user'
  if content[i] == "user\n" or i==-1:
    if i > 0:
      # close previous table row if not the first one
      record += "</pre></td></tr>"
      transcript.append(record)

    # filter badge
    if content[i+1] == "badge\n":
      j = 1
    else:
      j = 0
      
    record = format_header(
      content[i+j+2],
      content[i+j+1]
    )
    # skip out of the header
    i += j+2
  else:
    record += textwrap.fill(content[i],80, drop_whitespace=False, replace_whitespace=False)
  i += 1

# close the last record
record = record + "</pre></td></tr>"
transcript.append(record)

# reverse the transcript and print the table
transcript.reverse()
output += "\n".join(transcript)
output += "</table>"
print output

now prints in reverse order (order of events)