I have a data set that I need to import from the World Bank; my options are Excel, CSV, and SDMX. I have Iworks09. How do I
get it into a usable format - perhaps Pages? - on my computer?
Thanks in advance
MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7)
The easy way is to download, install and use the free LibreOffice.
Yvan KOENIG (VALLAURIS, France) vendredi 20 janvier 2012
iMac 21”5, i7, 2.8 GHz, 12 Gbytes, 1 Tbytes, mac OS X 10.6.8 and 10.7.2
My Box account is : http://www.box.com/s/00qnssoyeq2xvc22ra4k
My iDisk is : http://public.me.com/koenigyvan
I would save as .csv & then use Get Info to set Numbers as the default app for .csv files. That's what I've done & it works well with those files I've tried. Because I usually copy & paste the data into an existing spreadsheet, I can "clean up" the data before pasting into my exisitng spreadsheet.
Thanks Peggy, I tried this and it said that this file "could not be handled because Numbers cannot open files in the "document" format. Hmmm.
If you downloaded the datas as CSV, drag and drop the file on TextEdit's icon.
This way you will see the way values are stored.
If your system is set to use decimal period, Numbers requires values separated by commas in the CSV file
but
If your system is set to use decimal comma, Numbers requires values separated by semi-colons.
If the file doesn't match the rule, Numbers open the file with no error message but every values of a given row are inserted in a single cell.
So it seems clear that you didn't receive a csv datafile.
I'm, afraid that you downloaded datas for Excel or SDMX and give the file the .csv extension.
As I have no access to your bank, I can't guess what are the real format of the datas.
If I ask my own bank to download datas for Excel, I receive CA20120121_1223.slk
Numbers is unable to treat it correctly but one more time, it display its contents with no error message.
May you try to download in the three formats available ?
Then select one file's icon then press cmd + i
You will get the infos about the file.
Near the top, you will get the Type of file.
In the middle of the window you will see the "Open with" info
Do that for the three files and pass the info here (plus the used extension names).
Yvan KOENIG (VALLAURIS, France) samedi 21 janvier 2012
iMac 21”5, i7, 2.8 GHz, 12 Gbytes, 1 Tbytes, mac OS X 10.6.8 and 10.7.2
My Box account is : http://www.box.com/s/00qnssoyeq2xvc22ra4k
My iDisk is : http://public.me.com/koenigyvan
Sorry Yvan, perhaps I wasn't very clear. I'm trying to import data from"The World Bank," the international financial organization that collects economic data from every country in the world. I'm doing this for research
I am doing on economic growth patterns in developing countries. These are the choices I have been given:
I don't know if this will carry over in this thread, but I figure it's worth a shot.
Thank you, Paul
You should be able to download the Excel version of the data and open the file with Numbers.
The tabbed text file should also work and might be the better choice. Download it, drag the file from Finder and drop it onto the first cell of your Numbers table (or whatever cell you want to be the top-left for the data).
The icon for the "csv" file has an Excel symbol on it so it may not be a true CSV file.
I didn't realised that you were writing about what is known here as "La Banque Mondiale". 😉
I entered The World Bank webSite.
I got :
Selecting EXCEL FILE, I got the file FRA_Country_MetaData_en_EXCEL.xls which opened flawlessly in Numbers and in LibreOffice.
As I am a French user, some entries are wrongly formatted but if I was really trying to get them, I would put, temporarily, my system on English settings so I would get correctly formatted values which would remain OK after resetting the system to its current settings.
I will continue my exploration hoping to fing the choices which you described.
Maybe you may give details upon the page offering them.
Yvan KOENIG (VALLAURIS, France) samedi 21 janvier 2012
iMac 21”5, i7, 2.8 GHz, 12 Gbytes, 1 Tbytes, mac OS X 10.6.8 and 10.7.2
My Box account is : http://www.box.com/s/00qnssoyeq2xvc22ra4k
My iDisk is : http://public.me.com/koenigyvan
Unfortunately, I just get a message stating this file ". . . could not be handled because Numbers cannot open files in the 'document' format."
I would use the LibreOffice but I need to be able to share these files with others and, as you may have surmised, I am not terribly tech-savvy; I know just enough to be a danger to myself.
LibreOffice is a free clone of M…oSoft Office so it's a better choice than Numbers if you want to share files.
Numbers documents may be read only by Numbers which means on a mac or an iDevice.
I would be interested to learn exactly from which page and after which settings you reached the page offering the listed formats.
I assume that you must issue a precise request but as I'm unaware of many terms used in the Bank site, I'm unable to get them.
Yvan KOENIG (VALLAURIS, France) samedi 21 janvier 2012
iMac 21”5, i7, 2.8 GHz, 12 Gbytes, 1 Tbytes, mac OS X 10.6.8 and 10.7.2
My Box account is : http://www.box.com/s/00qnssoyeq2xvc22ra4k
My iDisk is : http://public.me.com/koenigyvan
Thank you Yvan,
it definitely works in Libro; I'll play around with it a bit and I'm sure I'll be able to make it work for me. One quickie question: is there a way to transpose the rows into columns, I know there is in Excel but I've been unable to find it (yet) in Libro.
Merci, Paul
In LibreOffice's Help, search for the word TRANSPOSE.
You will get the wanted explanation in plain English if you run an English System.
Here I get the help in French and I don't want to translate from French to English explanations originally written in English then translated in French.
Yvan KOENIG (VALLAURIS, France) samedi 21 janvier 2012
iMac 21”5, i7, 2.8 GHz, 12 Gbytes, 1 Tbytes, mac OS X 10.6.8 and 10.7.2
My Box account is : http://www.box.com/s/00qnssoyeq2xvc22ra4k
My iDisk is : http://public.me.com/koenigyvan
All you do is download the data into excel. The only thing is from the worldbank it will put the file in a .xls.exe format. this makes it open up in your textedit or other apps.
if you want it to open up properly in excel then simply REMOVE THE .exe from the end so YOU ARE LEFT WITH .xls
this will open your data properly from the worldbank site iff you say you want the data exported to excel.
How do I import Excel data?
