Instructions for Importing DWM Data Into Excel

In order to control the data type and display when downloading your data to Excel, it is best to manually import the data, overriding default data types for each column where necessary (for example, this will avoid Excel using "scientific notation" format for the FIA plot identification variable--PLT_CN--which is text in the FIA database).

1. After selecting state, ecoregion, and variables to download, select "Submit."
2. Instead of opening the CSV file in Excel, select "Save File."
3. Open a blank worksheet in Excel. Under "Data" select "Get External Data--From Text" to import the saved CSV file.
4. In Excel 2007 and 2010, the Text Import Wizard will step you through the import process.
5. First, select "Delimited" as the file type that best describes your data, starting the import at row 1 (which should contain the variable names).
6. Next, for "Delimiter" select "Comma" not "Tab" and select double quote as a "Text qualifier" (for indicating text in Excel).
7. Next, change the data format if needed for each field/column. This is the step where you can override Excel to display a number as text by selecting "Text" not "General". For example, for PLT_CN or province, selecting "General" will cause these to display as numbers, PLT_CN in scientific notation.
8. When you select "Finish", Excel will ask to you to specify the cell in the worksheet where you want the data but check "OK" if starting in cell A1 in the existing worksheet is fine.