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Save as Text (), .RTF (), .XML (), .XLSX ()

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The point of it…

Save as Text means save your data as a plain text file (as opposed to the WordSmith format for retrieving the data another day). It is usually quicker to copy selected text into the clipboard, e.g. if you simply want to insert your results into your word processor.

If you want to copy the data in colour, you should definitely use the clipboard.

In the case of a concordance, if you want only the words visible in your concordance line (not the number of characters mentioned below), use the clipboard and then Paste or Paste Special in graphics format.

 

How to do it

This function can be reached by Save As as shown here or Print to File (via F3 or WSImage_507_print_24) or Copy (WSImage_572_copy_24) to text file.

 

There are several options for saving in other formats

save_as_options

 

These menu choices up a Save as window as explained here for Concord.

 

 

Options include:

 

header

words you want to save at the start of the data (leave blank if not wanted);

numbered

whether the numbers visible in the column at the left are saved too

column separator

by default a tab but you can specify something else to go between visible columns

rows

all/any which you have highlighted/a specific range, e.g. 1-10, 5-, -3

columns

all/any which you have highlighted/a specific range

(column 1 is the one with the numbers)

 

You can then easily retrieve the data in your spreadsheet, database, word-processor, etc. (If you want to use it as a table in a word processor, first save as text, then in your word-processor choose the Convert Text to Table option if available. Choose to separate text at tabs.)

 

Note: The Excel spreadsheet (WSImage_401_excel_24) save will look something like this:

 

Wordlist_tagged_excel_save

Note, here POS tags have been treated as prefixes.

 

or (with column totals):

 

save_as_Excel

The words are visible from row 19 onwards; above them we get some summary data. The 1/8, 2/8 etc. section splits the data into eighths; thus 57% of the Frequency data (column C) is in the 1st eighth.

 

In the case of a concordance line, saving as text will save as many "characters in 'save as text'" as you have set (adjustable in the Controller Concord Settings). The reason for this is that you will probably want a fixed number of characters, so that when using a non proportional font the search-words line up nicely. See also: Concord save and print.

 

Each worksheet can handle up to just over 1 million rows and over 16,000 columns. .

 

If your data contains a time-line you will also get another worksheet in the Excel file, looking like this.

 

timeline_plot_energy_excel

Details of a time-line are found in a second tab in Excel, showing the word-counts for each time-period across the top and the number of hits for each search-word below.

 

The dispersion plot of the same concordance data show in the second Excel tab, the positions of each hit for the various search-words in different texts. In the plot you see marks but here you get the raw word numbers where each came.You could process those numbers in another program of your choice.

 

energy_plot_excel

In the case of XML text (WSImage_404_XML_24), you may get a large .XML file.

 

See also: Excel Files in batch processing, Automated scripts