Import excel files in stata

Data is shared in many different formats, with one of the most common file formats being Microsoft Excel (.xls or .xlsx) spreadsheets. If you have received your raw data in this format you will need to import it into Stata in order to analyse it. Here we will go through how to import an MS Excel file using both Stata menus and commands.

Import Excel using Stata Menus:

File > Import > Excel spreadsheet (*.xls;*.xlsx)

Click Browse…

Navigate to the location of the file you want to import and select it. We are going to import a dataset called econostata.xlsx.

Click Open

Once you select your dataset you will be shown a snapshot of that dataset and how it is going to import.

By default Stata will assume the excel column names (A, B, C, etc.) are the variable names. If the first row of your spreadsheet contains the true variables names, select the tick box «Import first row as variable names» as I have done in the image above.

By default Stata will preserve the text case of the variable names. It is generally recommended that you change this from «Preserve» to «Lower» via the drop-down menu below «Variable case:» on the right side of the window, as I have done in the image above.

Note: Stata variable names are case-sensitive. If you preserve the case of your variable names you will need to remember where upper and lower case letters are in each variable name in order to use those variables in commands in Stata.

If you have multiple worksheets in your spreadsheet, they will need to be imported one at a time as separate datasets. Once imported and saved these individual sheet datasets can be merged or appended as needed. Stata will automatically assume you want to import the first sheet.

If there is another sheet you want to import, you will need to select it from the drop-down menu under «Worksheet:» on the left side of the window. In the above image the selected sheet is shown in the selection box as «Sheet1 A1:H1157».

Stata will try to detect the cell range for you, and it will select all columns and rows with data. If your spreadsheet is set up with empty columns/rows between filled columns/rows you may need to alter the cell range as Stata will stop its selection when it reaches the first empty column and row. Additionally, if you only want to import part of the spreadsheet you may want to alter the cell range to include only the information you want.

To specify your cell range, click the «…» button or simply type in your new cell range in the box below «Cell range:» on the right side of the window.

There is also an option to «Import all data as strings», which is a tick box below the tick box for «Import first row as variable names». There are some instances where you want to format or convert numeric variables in a special way in Stata. It is sometimes easier to do this by importing a numeric variable as a string and then formatting it appropriately once it is in Stata. If this is something you need to do, make sure to select this tick box. We do not want to do this for this example.

Once you have made the selections appropriate for your dataset, click OK

Your dataset should now be loaded, and you should be able to examine it using the browse command.

Import Excel using Stata Commands:

To import an excel spreadsheet through the Command pane you use the command import excel. There are several options that can be added to this command as needed. To import the same spreadsheet in the same way as was done above with the menus, you use the following command:

In the command above, you start with the command import excel followed by the full file path of the excel file you are importing. You then add a comma, and anything after the comma are options you need to specify if you want to alter the default import settings.

The sheet() option used in this command gives the name of the sheet you are importing. If there is only one sheet in the file you do not need to specify this option.

The firstrow option used in this command tells Stata that the first row of your spreadsheet contains the variable names.

The case() option used in this command tells Stata which case the variable names should be imported as. You can specify either lower, upper, or preserve inside the brackets. It is generally recommended to specify the case as lower when importing, as was done in our command above.

There are additional options you can add which we did not use here. Any option just needs to be added after the comma, as was done in the command above. Make sure to separate multiple options with a space between each option. The additional options not used here are outlined below as follows:

The cellrange() option is used when you want to specify a range that is different to what Stata has selected by default. You can specify a cell range in one of two ways. First, you can just give the starting (top left) cell for your dataset. For example — cellrange(B27) tells Stata that the data in the spreadsheet starts at cell B27 and continues across in columns and down in rows until a blank column and row is reached. The second way of specifying a cell range is to give both the starting and ending cells. If you also need to specify the end (bottom right) cell, you just add a colon between the two cells. For example — cellrange(B27:H1235) tells Stata the top left cell is B27 and the bottom right cell is H1235.

the allstring option is used when you want all your variables to be imported into Stata as string or text variables. You just add this after the comma to use.

The clear option is used when you want to replace the current dataset loaded in memory with this newly imported excel dataset. Note: This will permanently erase any data that was already loaded. Make sure to save your current dataset before you use this option. You just add this after the comma to use.

When you enter your command through the Stata Command pane your dataset should then be loaded into Stata.

Output:

The only output Stata will give you when you are importing a file is print the selected command to the Results pane, followed by the number of variables and observations imported. It will print the command even if you use Stata menus to import your file. This is because all interactions with Stata are ultimately done through commands, even those initially done through menus. All the Stata menus are doing is taking the selections you make and converting them to a command that is then given to Stata to run. The output for this example is below:

To examine my imported dataset I use the browse command to open it in spreadsheet view, which you can see below:

2.0 Demonstration and explanation

A) Preparing the workspace

A1. Changing the working directory

We start by changing the working directory, which is the default directory (folder) from which Stata will read files and to which Stata will write files. We can read/write to a directory different from the working directory by specifying a full path name when reading/writing files. We use the cd command to change directories and then dir or ls to list the contents of the directory.

cd w:     /* note: directory and path may differ on your computer */
dir

A2. No dataset can be loaded while another dataset is in memory

In Stata, we can only have one dataset loaded in memory at a time. Before another dataset can be loaded, we must erase all data from memory using the clear command. We can also clear memory as we load in another dataset using the clear option on one of the data-loading commands (see below)

clear

B) Use import delimited to read in delimited data from other sources

B1. Comma-separated file with variable names

Our first data will come as a spreadsheet, often managed or created by programs such as Excel. For example, in
Excel, we can save data as a comma-separated-values format (.csv) file, which is a text file with fields separated by commas. Here is a how a .csv file might appear:

gender,id,race,ses,schtyp,prgtype,read,write,math,science,socst
0,70,4,1,1,general,57,52,41,47,57
1,121,4,2,1,vocati,68,59,53,63,61
0,86,4,3,1,general,44,33,54,58,31
0,141,4,3,1,vocati,63,44,47,53,56
0,172,4,2,1,academic,47,52,57,53,61
0,113,4,2,1,academic,44,52,51,63,61
0,50,3,2,1,general,50,59,42,53,61
0,11,1,2,1,academic,34,46,45,39,36
0,84,4,2,1,general,63,57,54,,51
0,48,3,2,1,academic,57,55,52,50,51

The command import delimited can read text files in which the fields are separated by any character, such as spaces, commas or tabs. The command reads the first line of the data file to automatically indentify the character used as the separator (the separator can be explicitly specified with the delimiter option). Imagine we have a data file, hs0.csv, located in our current working directory. Here are the Stata commands to read these data. We use the describe command to check if the input was successful.

import delimited using hs0.csv,  clear
describe

B2. Comma-separated file without variable names

If the first line of the data does not contain the variable names, we must supply the names to the import delimited command.
Let’s try to read such a file called hs0_noname.csv.

import delimited gender id race ses schtyp prgtype read write math science socst using hs0_noname.csv, clear
describe

B3. Delimited files in general

We can use the import delimited command to read text files where the fields are separated by any character, such as spaces or tabs. Here is a snapshot of the datafile, hs0.raw.

0	70	4	1	1	general		57	52	41	47	57
1	121	4	2	1	vocati		68	59	53	63	61
0	86	4	3	1	general		44	33	54	58	31
0	141	4	3	1	vocati		63	44	47	53	56
0	172	4	2	1	academic	47	52	57	53	61
0	113	4	2	1	academic	44	52	51	63	61

The columns are left-justified, suggesting that the file is tab-delimited. However, some columns (namely columns 6 and 7) may have 1 or 2 tabs between them — it can be hard to tell by visual inspection. We explicitly tell Stata that the delimiter is a tab in the datafile using the delimiter option, and use the suboption collapse to treat multiple tabs as one delimiter. This file has no variable names, so we must supply them again:

import delimited gender id race ses schtyp prgtype read write math science socst using hs0.raw, delimiter(tab, collapse) clear 

C) Use infix to read in fixed format files

Another data format in which data can be stored is fixed format. It always
requires a codebook to specify which column(s) corresponds to which variable. Here is small
example of this type of data with a codebook. Notice how we make use of the
codebook in the infix command below. We will use the
schdat.fix data file.

        195  094951
        26386161941
        38780081841
        479700  870
        56878163690
        66487182960
        786  069  0
        88194193921
        98979090781
       107868180801

Below we use the infile command, where we specify variable names and the column numbers that their corresponding values inhabit.

clear
infix id 1-2 a1 3-4 t1 5-6 gender 7 a2 8-9 t2 10-11 tgender 12 using schdat.fix

D) Use import excel to read in Excel files

The import excel command was introduce in Stata 12. Here is what the file hsbdemo.xlsx looks like.

On the import excel command below, we specify the sheet where the data are located with the sheet() option and that the variable names are contained in the first row using the firstrow option.

import excel using hsbdemo.xlsx, sheet("hsbdemo") firstrow clear

E) Use input to enter data from the keyboard or a do-file

We can also use the do-file editor to input data. The do-file editor is used for
writing a sequence of commands and running them all at once. You can copy and paste
the following Stata syntax to the do-file editor and run it. You can also paste this directly into the Command window

clear
input id female race ses str3 schtype prog read write math science socst
147 1 1 3 pub 1 47 62 53 53 61
108 0 1 2 pub 2 34 33 41 36 36
 18 0 3 2 pub 3 50 33 49 44 36
153 0 1 2 pub 3 39 31 40 39 51
 50 0 2 2 pub 2 50 59 42 53 61
 51 1 2 1 pub 2 42 36 42 31 39
102 0 1 1 pub 1 52 41 51 53 56
 57 1 1 2 pub 1 71 65 72 66 56
160 1 1 2 pub 1 55 65 55 50 61
136 0 1 2 pub 1 65 59 70 63 51
end

After running the above program, we can issue the describe command to get a
general idea about the data set.

describe

F) The save command reads stores data as Stata data (.dta) files, and the use command loads Stata data files

We can save the data set we just created to disk by issuing the save command. This creates a .dta file when no extension is specified.

save hsb10

We can then load the data we just saved using the use command.

clear
use hsb10
use "W:hsb10", clear

G) The use command can load files over the internet

The use command can also be used to read a data file over the
internet, which we will do throughout this seminar.

use https://stats.idre.ucla.edu/stat/data/hs0, clear

3.0 For more information

• Data
  Management Using Stata:  A Practical Handbook
  • Chapter 2
• Statistics
  with Stata 12
  • Chapter 2
• Gentle Introduction to Stata, Revised Third Edition
  • Chapter 2
• Data Analysis Using Stata, Third Edition
  • Chapter 11
• 
  An Introduction to Stata for Health Researchers, Third Edition
  • Chapter 6
• Stata Learning Modules
  • A sample Stata
    session
  • Inputting raw data files into Stata
• Frequently Asked Questions
  • How can I convert files among SAS,
    SPSS and Stata?
  • How can I input a dataset quickly?
  • How
    can I read Excel files in Stata? (Stata 12)
  • How
    can I read Stata 12 data files in Stata 11?
  • How do I read a data file that uses
    commas/tabs as delimiters?
  • How can I handle the No Room to Add
    Observations Error?