Reading data in from Excel

Reading data in from Excel

As an example of reading in data from Excel, first open and examine the file Fal environment.xls, to note the simple format of a title in box A1, column headings (unique) for the samples in row 2, row headings (also unique) for the variables in column A, with only numeric entries in the array itself (rows 3 to 14). This is followed by a blank row, followed by the same three factors as above. This format must be adhered to precisely, with no extra blank rows or columns, or extra headers. After File>Open, you need to find the drop-down list (bottom right of the Open dialog) and select Excel Files, which should display the Fal environment.xls sheet. Select it, and Open now takes you through a File Wizard, for which you take the defaults – but look what they are – other than specifying (Data type•Environmental). If this worksheet were now to be saved in the default format (File>Save Data As), the result would be the Fal environment.pri file already in the workspace.