2.2 Importing Excel Files

One way to get Excel files directly into R is by using the readxl package. Install the package, and try using the read_excel() function to load the data, and assign it to an object called df:

# Run this only once, to download and install the package:
install.packages("readxl")
# Load the package:
library(readxl)
# Read an Excel file into 'df':
df <- read_excel("your_file.xlsx",
                            sheet = 1)

2.2.1 Inspect the data

R does not work with a single spreadsheet (SPSS or Excel). Instead, it can keep many objects in memory. The object df is a data.frame; an object that behaves similar to a spreadsheet. To see a description of the object, look at the Environment tab in the top right of Rstudio, and click the arrow next to df.

As you can see, the on the top-right pane Environment, your file is now listed as a data set in your RStudio environment.

You can make a quick copy of this data set by assigning the df object to a new object. This way, you can edit one, and leave the other unchanged. Assign the object df to a new object called df_backup:

df_backup <- df

You can also have a look at the contents of df by clicking the object in the Environment panel, or running the command head(df).

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