Text files

[Paul R. Jackson]

Edward,

Yes you are 100% correct. An XL file that definitely had the problem for me,
only a couple of months ago, isn't doing it now. I have been using Office XP
for about a year now though. BUT I have done some office updates in the mean
time so this probably have fixed the issue (bug?).

I am glad that you pointed that out though, because I have been advising
people here to look out for the problem, and now I can tell them to just get
everything up to date. Thanks.

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: Tuesday, 17 February 2004 2:11 AM
> To: eprime at mail.talkbank.org
> Subject: RE: Text files
> 
> 
> 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
> > > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> > > >
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