Importing delimiter-separated files
Wizard can import delimiter-separated files, for example, CSV and tab-delimited files exported by spreadsheet programs and database programs. However, unlike binary files, delimiter-separated files do not indicate which columns contain numeric data and which contain text data. Some care is required when importing them.
To ensure that your delimiter-separated file is successfully imported:
- Ensure that the first row of the file contains variable names (for example, "price")
- Ensure that the first non-blank entry in each column reflects that column's data type. For example, numeric columns should have a numeric value in this row, and text columns should have a non-numeric value in this row. It may be necessary to rearrange rows in the file to achieve this.
- When you are ready to import, choose File > Import Tab-Delimited File (or Imported Comma-Separated Values, or Import Text File With Other Delimiter)
- Select your file
- Finally, inspect the imported data for errors, and treat appropriate columns as categories
Because of the potential for error, if your data is available in a supported binary format, it is usually better to import that instead.
See also: