Text files

[Edward Carney]

I used to encounter this in older versions of Excel, but I have not
found it to be true in more recent versions (Office XP, 2002, etc.).
I just double-checked with Excel 2002 and all the returns were in place.

Paul's point reinforces mine, though--that checking the formatting is
important in the event that your first attempt fails.

Edward Carney
Research Associate
Univ. of Minnesota

On Mon, 16 Feb 2004, Paul R. Jackson wrote:

> An important thing to keep in mind when importing excel created delimited
> text files to lists, is that excel doesn't place a return on the last line.
> This causes the list NOT TO IMPORT the last line. (At least from what I have
> seen). Basically you need to manually place the return on the last line.
>
> I hope this helps somebody avoid wasting hours such as I did working out
> what's going on.
>
> Paul
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>  Paul R. Jackson
>  Experimental Programmer
>
>  School of Psychology
>  University of Queensland
>  E:paulj at psy.uq.edu.au
>  P:3365-6713
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: eprime at mail.talkbank.org
> > [mailto:eprime at mail.talkbank.org] On Behalf Of Edward Carney
> > Sent: Friday, 13 February 2004 1:18 AM
> > To: eprime at mail.talkbank.org
> > Subject: RE: Text files
> >
> >
> > You can also import text files into List objects.  The file
> > should have a first line with the names of the attributes and
> > a line corresponding to each level.  I've used Excel to
> > create these and saved them as tab-delimited text files.
> > (TAB is the expected delimiter for E-Prime.)
> >
> > One good reason for doing things this way is that you can set
> > up the text/slide object and have the text placed from the
> > relevant attribute.  I helped program a study on memory for
> > narrative in which entire paragraphs were used and placed in
> > single attributes.  I've found text placement to be extremely
> > accurate from slide to slide.
> >
> > Don't give up if E-Studio chokes on your first attempt.
> > Double check the formatting of the text file. (Word will do
> > fine.  Set Tools/Options/View to allow visible tabs/paras
> > when you're editing one of these files.  It makes the
> > formatting obvious, especially when lines are long and
> > organize themselves into paragraphs.)  Make sure that there
> > are no extra blank lines at the end.  In my experience this
> > doesn't usually happen in Excel, but you never know.
> >
> > Another good reason for using external text files is that you
> > can set up randomizations ahead of time and adjust them for
> > various complex criteria, instead of writing complicated code
> > to check for these.  Use a separate list (or E-Studio
> > program) for each randomization.  This alone might save you hours.
> >
> > Excel permits fairly easy "pseudo-randomizing".  Enter
> > =rand() in an entire column and then do a sort on all the
> > columns using the rand column as the "sort by" column.  Make
> > sure that you have your "Calculation" tab in Tools/Options
> > set to manual (use F9 to do the calculations).  Or do a Paste
> > Special (values) to save the values in place. Otherwise the
> > rand() gets recalculated all the time and you don't know
> > where you are.  Delete the rand() column before you save the
> > worksheet as a TXT file (or not; it's up to you).
> >
> > Regards,
> > Edward Carney
> > Research Associate
> > Univ. of Minnesota
> >
> > On Thu, 12 Feb 2004, Paul R. Jackson wrote:
> >
> > > You can import words from text files, see example
> > experiment in zip at
> > > www.psy.uq.edu.au/~paulj/words.zip
> > >
> > > This zip contains 'words.txt' which is a text file with a
> > word on each
> > > line and 'textfile.es' which is the experiment (obviously!).
> > >
> > > This example imports them into a text screen but the import
> > can be to
> > > anything really.
> > >
> > > Let me know if this doesn't make sense or doesn't work,
> > works fine on
> > > my machine.
> > >
> > > Paul
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> > >  Paul R. Jackson
> > >  Experimental Programmer
> > >
> > >  School of Psychology
> > >  University of Queensland
> > >  E:paulj at psy.uq.edu.au
> > >  P:3365-6713
> > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
>
>
>
>