LOESS residual output in R

When I extract residuals from a LOESS regression the output is in multiple columns instead of just 2- the line number and the result.

Once you export this to excel it will spit it out with all sorts of errors or requiring shifting some lines over a few columns and always reducing everything to 2 columns which takes forever. Is there a way to adjust the output format in R?

Your R-output is a vector, with the integers indicating the data point (i.e. first, second, ...). In other words: no, you don't have multiple columns; this is an artefact when opening/reading it into Excel.

When you export it, simply use write.csv or alike and you will get a friendly, single-column file (or two-column, if you have and keep the row names).

cars.lo <- loess(dist ~ speed, cars)
resids <- residuals(cars.lo)
write.csv(resids, "loRes.csv")

This example has no row names, hence is a single column, with a column variable name ("x").

You should have no trouble reading that into Excel (other spreadsheet software is available).