A Brief Primer on Getting Data Off the Web

Congratulations! You are undoubtedly trying to figure out how to access data stored on the web, and/or how to convert it into some form that is usable by yourself and others.

The purpose of these directions is to provide a general overview of one or two strategies that you may find helpful. Detailed instructions are not included herein because many sources of data are idiosyncratic, and (if you are lucky and the webmaster for the site of interest is kind) specific instructions will be found at the site itself.

Many of the sites containing data will have the information stored in a text-based matrix format, often using ASCII symbols. The data will be in the form of numerous rows, often with commas or multiple spaces separating what should be columns. Your job will be to (1) copy or download that information into your computer, and (2) reformat the data to create a table that is useable.

Suppose that you have come across a table that you find of interest. To download it to your computer, merely select "Save As" in the "File" menu of your web-browser. Give the file a name that you can remember, consistent with your system requirements (Mac users have an advantage here). Use the "text" option when saving the file.

The second step, converting it into a form that is usable, is more difficult because it depends on the application programs that you have available. Commonly, you should have a spreadsheet (eg., MS-Works, Excel, or AppleWorks) or a statistics program. In either case, the simplest method is to use the "Open" or "Import" command, and select the text file that you saved. That alone might work.

If not, follow this sequence:

• Open the document in a word processor or text editor.
• If you use a spreadsheet that interprets two or more blanks as a tab, copy all the data lines and paste them into spreadsheet. This puts the entries into separate columns.
• If you use Excel, open the text file you saved. Excel will put all the data in one column. Highlight the cells in the first column that have the data you want separated:
  • In Excel 4.0: chose "Parse" from the "Data" menu. Put brackets [ ] around the columns, then Excel will break it into columns.
  • In Excel 5.0: chose Text to columns from the Data menu. click and drag the column separators, if necessary, then Excel will break it into columns.
• OR repeatedly replace all three blanks with two blanks until there are no more triple spaces left. Then replace all two blanks with a tab.
• Then copy all the lines and paste them into a spreadsheet. This puts the entries into separate columns.

You will most likely find that the columns are coded. To understand those codes, you should browse the site for additional explanation.

Good luck!

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Much of the information on this page was kindly provided by Dr. John Koch, Wilkes University.