-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Federal Audit Clearinghouse -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ================================================================================ Instructions to Load Text Files Into an Excel Worksheet Downloading files to your computer: 1) Select the appropriate file you would like to download 2) Select the option on the pop-up to either open or save the .zip file. 3) Once the download has completed, open the .zip file with the default software installed on your computer. 4) Select all .txt files that you want to unzip. 5) Choose a location to unzip the files to (using a drop down menu or other selection tool the software uses). 6) Unzip the files. Opening the files: 1) Open Microsoft Excel. 2) Select File, and then select Open. 3) Find the location where you unzipped the files as described above. 4) Select All Files from the dropdown for the document/file type. 5) Select the file you would like to view, and then click Open. 6) A Text Import Wizard will pop up on the screen. Select Delimited for the “Original data type”. 7) Click Next. 8) Unselect Tab from the “Delimiters” section, and select Other. Enter the pipe character, “|”, into the field provided. 9) Select “{none}” from the “Text qualifier” drop-down. 10) Click Next. 11) In the “Data Preview” section, select the first column. 12) Select Text (or other data format type) from the “Column data format” section. 13) Select the next column in the “Data Preview” section. 14) Repeat steps 11 and 12 until all columns have been formatted (i.e. dates have been formatted as dates, text as text). Make sure fields with numbers that are not really numbers (i.e. EINS, DUNS) are formatted as Text. This is to ensure that any leading or trailing zeros are maintained in the data, and are not dropped by Excel. 15) Click Finish. Sorting/filtering the data: 1) Select Data along the top menu bar. 2) Click Sort to sort the data by different columns (can be sorted by multiple columns at once), or 3) Click Filter to filter the data by selecting criteria from the dropdown menus that appear along the first row. ================================================================================ Federal Audit Clearinghouse Contact Information email: erd.fac@census.gov phone: (301) 763-1551 ================================== END =========================================