Importing data Data Analysis and Statistical （导入数据数据分析和统计）.pdf

8 Importing data Copying and pasting One of the easiest ways to get data into Stata is often overlooked: you can copy data from most applications that understand the concept of a table and then paste the data into the Data Editor. This approach works for all spreadsheet applications, many database applications, some word-processing applications, and even some webpages. Just copy the full range of data, paste it into the Data Editor, and everything will probably work well. You can even copy a text file that has the pieces of data separated by commas and then paste it into the Data Editor. Suppose that your friend has a small dataset about some very old cars. You would like to put these data into Stata. Doing so is easier than you think: 1. Clear out your current dataset by typing . 2. Copy the data from the PDF documentation the way you would copy anything from any document. (For best results, use Adobe Reader.) 3. Open the Data Editor in edit mode. 4. Select Edit Paste Special 5. Stata sees that the column delimiters are commas and shows how the data would look. 6. Click on the OK button. You can see that Stata has imported the data nicely. Later in this chapter, we would like to bring these data into Stata without copying and pasting, so we would like to save them as a text file. Go back to the main Stata window, and click on the Do-file Editor button, , to open a new Do-file Editor window. Paste the data in the Do-file Editor, then click on the Save button. Navigate to your working directory, and save the file as . If you do not know what your working direct