Introduction to R: Saving an Excel File as CSV

In the previous post we talked about loading and writing files in R, we also tackled the topics about the read.table() and the read.csv() functions. In this post we will learn how to save an Excel file in csv format.

CSV is short for comma separated values, this allows the data to be saved in a table structured format. Excel files that are saved under the csv format takes the form of a text file containing information separated by a series of comma between values.

The R language however can read other file formats:
read.xls() for the Excel files, though you need to have a Perl run time to exist in the system to use this. A more complex form of importing Excel files to R is through the use of the loadWorkbook(), to load the workbook and the readWorksheet() to open the desired worksheet in the workbook. You need to install Java for this.

To import Minitab files to R you can use the read.mtp(), for SPSS R Language has the read.spss() and finally for the csv we have the read.csv().

Before you can load your csv in the R language you need to save your Excel files to the csv format using the following steps:

a. In this example I have an Excel file which contains the current employee census of Australia.

b. Click the home button, click Save as, click Other formats.

c. Choose the CSV(comma delimited) format. You have an option to chosse the CSV(Macintosh) or CSV(MS-DOS). I prefer to use the comma delimited format.

d. Click Save.

e. If you have multiple sheets, Excel will give you a warning that only the current active worksheet will be saved into the csv format and other worksheets should be individually saved.

f. Another warning will pop out that the file may not be compatible with the comma delimited format, you can ignore this and click yes.