Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Department of
Urban Studies and Planning
11.220 Quantitative Reasoning and Statistical Methods for Planning
MS-Access
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MS-Access > Import a text file
1. Click on the "Data" link below and download the files lowell_p_top200_for_tutorial.txt and lowell_h_top200_for_tutorial.txt. This can be done by right-clicking on each file name and choosing "Save Target As" or "Save Link As." Save them into a folder under your Athena home directory, "Z:" drive, called "home on '<your username>-afs' ...".
Also, right-click on pums.pdf and choose "Open in New Window" and keep this pdf available for reference. After you open the datasets in Access you will need to see the code information for variables in the Lowell datasets. You can search for variable names in the pums.pdf file.
2. Launch MS-Access
To launch MS-Access from the Start Menu choose Start- > Programs -> Microsoft -> Microsoft Access.
3. Create a blank database. You'll be asked to choose where the new database file will be located. Please select some place under your Athena home directory, 'Z:' drive, called "home on '<your username>-afs' ..." and name it "11220db.mdb".
4. Import Data. Place your mouse over the database pane and right-click, then click "import..."
5. Find the raw data files you just downloaded. Be careful to change the "Files of type" at the bottom of the import window to "Text Files." Otherwise, you cannot see them. Then, click the 'Import' button at the bottom right corner of the window.
6. Import Text Wizard
Choose "Delimited" and click "Next."
Choose "Comma" and click "First Row Contains Field Names" and click "Next."
Choose "In a New Table" and click "Next."
Select the appropriate "Data Type" for each field. If you are importing lowell_h_top200_for_tutorial, leave the variable data types as they are. If you are importing lowell_p_top200_for_tutorial, please change the "incws" data type to "double" from "text." Click "Next."
Choose "No primary key" and click "Next."
Click "Finish."
7. Double-click the table. If you see something like the following, you've successfully imported the raw data.
* Remember when you import lowell_p_top200_for_tutorial.txt, please change the "incws" data type to "double" from "text."
Created by Myounggu Kang on January 25, 2004. Edited by Rhonda Ryznar on January 19, 2006.