There are a number of ways to create a spreadsheet with any data from a website or comments from a blog. Microsoft Office's Excel is a common tool for making a spreadsheet. If this tool is inaccessible to you, an online tool such as
Google Docs can be helpful.
If you are familiar with Microsoft Excel, the features under "Data" can be extremely helpful for different types of project.
The easiest but also the most time-consuming way to make a spreadsheet is to input data cell by cell making each row into a single unit of text and information. DiscoverText allows you to choose two columns as your Title (name of item of text) and Text (the actual text) when importing, so you will want to separate your data in this fashion. It is often best to use the first two columns of your spreadsheet, called column A and column B in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, as your two main information columns. You can use other columns to include other metadata that you would like imported with the text.
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Input data into cells of these two columns, you can either type information in or copy and paste. Be aware that long paragraphs will spread across other columns, but the data stays within the original cell. If you are not sure of the content of each cell, the "Name Box" and the "Formula Bar" above the sheet can assist you; simply click on a cell, the "Formula Bar" will show you the content of this cell.
The following image shows the first cell of column C (C1 in "Name Box") which does not contain any information, therefore the "Formula Bar" is empty.
It will be useful to add a Header to your spreadsheet, especially if you are including metadata.
Row 1 is now a header naming what is in each of the columns, the first being Title, second Text-Description, third Time To Cook, and fourth Yield. This was done by inserting a row above the previous Row 1 and filling in the appropriate cells. When we go to import this file into DiscoverText, now column A and B are named and will be able to be referred to by that name as well as giving the metadata (columns C and D) names that will tag them and make them more useful after import.
Importing the Excel/CSV file into DiscoverText
After creating a spreadsheet, we can import this spreadsheet to a project. Launch to the Import Archive page. You can get to this page by following steps from
Create a new project with your own data page.
On the Archive Type page click the icon for "Excel or CSV". The Import Archive page appears where you have the option to name the Archive, choose the file, and select whether you have a header row. Select the XLS or CSV file through browsing files in your computer. The check-box in front of "Spreadsheet has a header row?" is checked by default, deselect it if your archive file does not have a header row, leave it checked if you are using one (which is recommended). Click on the
"Upload" button when you are ready to proceed.
Once your spreadsheet has been uploaded, DiscoverText asks you to select which two columns are your Texts located in and which one has your Titles. If you only have a file with one column of text you can leave the Title column set to "(no column)". Having a descriptive name in the header row is really useful at this point because there is no confusion which is the Text column and which the Title column for this spreadsheet. Click
"Process Spreadsheet" once you have made your selections.
The screenshot below displays how the Title, Text, and metadata are all displayed when you browse an archive. Notice what was the column headers in the spreadsheet is now the tags for the metadata.
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