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| Extension - To create your own personalized
data set sets follow the instructions below In
this extension you will be working with ASCII files (one of the earliest
programming
languages) and converting them to excel file format.
Be patient, this is a
challenging but very imporrtant procedure. |
1.
Visit the Plumes and Blooms project website
(http://www.icess.ucsb.edu/PnB/PnB.html)
- When you get to the index look
at the core cruises page
-
On the core cruises page select the bottle files link.
-
From here select the data set you would like to work with by cruise date (we will
use pb63 for our example).
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| 2.
With the data set pulled up on your browser go to > "File"
and > "Save As" to your designated folder | | | 3.
Open the Microsoft Excel application and go to >"File" > "Open."
and open the file you just saved . |
| 4.
The text import wizard will pop up and ask you to choose a file type. 1
Select fixed width
and click the 2
Next button. |
 |
| 5.
Move down to where your actual data is and begin assigning columns to the data.
Do this by clicking in the areas between different parameters where the actual
columns would be (denoted by solid black bars). Click finish. (HINT-It is easiest
to denote columns only for the parameters that you want to compare.) |
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| 6.
The cumbersome ASCII file has been converted into a usable Excel spreadsheet.
Good work! | | 7.
The next step is to clean up your data set. First, remove any rows that are unnecessary
for your purposes. This will generally include the first 80 rows or so. These
rows are not needed because they simply explanations of the parameters and their
units. | |
| 8.
Now is a good time to look at the parameter
explanations (http://www.cinms.nos.noaa.gov/pcw2/dataparam.html)
found in the interpreting data section of the student website.
You may want to print a copy of this and have it with you as
you continue. |
9. You will also want to: 1
delete the ID# column (column A). This is done because the individual
ID# have no significance other than identification of the bottle.
2You
will also need to delete any rows that may follow your data set. Usually these
are full of little squares that served as invisible place markers in the original
ASCII file.
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| 10.
Now that your data is a little easier to work with you will
want to add in the proper headers. They are already present
in your excel workbook but by using
the headers provided here they will be unaltered by
the ASCII conversion and easier to work with. |
11.
Simply copy the header row in the provided excel file and paste it directly on
top of the header row existing in your newly created file. 12.
Now you are ready to plot your data! |
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