How to Parse Data in Excel

Data parsing is an excellent tool that offers a variety of use cases for business owners, researchers, and others. If you are using Excel now to manage much of your data analysis, that can be a good thing, but it can also be challenging to move data into Excel in a meaningful way and to navigate just the information you need. Excel data parsing is a specific process that can help you easily navigate this complicated process.

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Excel is often used by professionals for data analysis, and for good reason. It has numerous features that let you extract, modify, and analyze data on a grand scale. One of the features you can take on is parsing data. Parsing is a term that means to split data into components by a pre-set goal or arrangement for another task. Let’s explore how to parse data in Excel and why you may want to do so.

What Is Excel Data Parsing?

Let’s start with the reason behind Excel data parsing. The process involves reading and extracting structured information from Excel files. The goal is to create a dataset that is usable for a specific goal. That goal could be analyzing detailed information about your company, reporting, or processing it further in various ways. Excel data parsing is a common strategy.

It is important to note that you may want to parse data into Excel so that you can use it in the Microsoft spreadsheet tool. That is one option. However, you may also want to use it in Excel and then use it as a part of your wider business intelligence effort. For example, if you are a business owner, you know that data makes a huge difference in the decisions you make. 

Consider a few ways that you can use data parsing to help you with your projects and objectives:

• Scrape real estate listings for business use 
• Capture real estate data analytics 
• Get crucial data with real-time analytics 
• Capture datasets for your business

There are many use cases for learning how to parse data in Excel. In fact, if you are using Excel for just about any component of your business, learning how to parse the data Excel holds for you could change how you analyze data and the results you get from doing so. 

There are various reasons why you may want to parse data in Excel. The bottom line is that this process can make data automation easier, including gathering and organizing information such as business plan, customer, sales, and employee data. All of these types of detailed bits of information about your company are likely already organized in Excel for you.

The problem is, your business workflows may require Excel data to be transformed or in some way modified so that it can be used in other formats. This would allow it to be sent to your customer relationship management (CRM) or ERPs as desired. You could even send it to your Google Sheets if you want it to be accessible to your Google suite of tools. 

When you have data in Excel, parse the text so that it can fit the specific objectives you have. When you parse data in Excel in an automated fashion, the entire process is very fast and efficient. By contrast, if you tried to manually navigate the data in your Excel documents for specific tasks, it would take you much longer to do, and it is also prone to human errors and typos. That is just not effective. However, Excel data parsing can be very simple and easy to use. 

What Data Parsing Means

Let’s take a step back for a moment to talk about what an Excel parser is or what data parsing really means. Data parsing is a process in which you make data more structured and organized. It ultimately makes that data more readable and usable for your specific needs. Because much of this data comes to you raw and unstructured, it is hard to actually interpret and analyze without spending much time doing so. Data parsing makes the data easier to read. 

You can choose how you wish to parse data based on your objectives. Some of the most common reasons to do Excel data parsing might include:

• Changing the data type of an attribute
• Trimming strings 
• Splitting strings into multiple columns
• Combining two or more strings with each other

How to Parse Data in Excel

Now that we can see the value in why you may want to parse text to Excel, let’s talk about the ways to make it happen. The data that you import into Excel may be messy and cluttered. Some of the data you have may not be beneficial for the way you use that information. You just want the good information, so you need to learn how to parse in Excel. 

Using Pandas to Parse a Function in Excel

Excel data parsing involves reading and extracting structured information from Excel files, typically in formats like .xls or .xlsx, to make the data usable for analysis, reporting, or further processing.

There are various tools that can help you to do this. Pandas in Python are one example. Pandas is an excellent method for reading all types of data within Excel files. They enable you to export the results you get back to Excel. This may be the desired goal for some projects. You can also use pandas for tasks that involve data analysis, including drawing attractive plots, feeding data into machine learning tools, and building machine learning models using that data. 

It is also an improvement because it can automate data processing tasks in Excel. That includes the processing of Excel files. You can complete various tasks using pandas for data parsing Excel content. For example, you can read data from the Excel file by importing the data from the Excel file into pandas using the 

Import pandas as pd

Then use the pandas’ read_excel method to read in data from the Excel file. The easiest way to call this method is to pass the file name.

Also note that pandas has a built-in DataFrame.head() method. This allows for the easy display of the first rows within your DataFrame. One of the complexities of this process occurs when you have numerous sheets, which is quite common today. The pandas read_excel method takes an argument called sheetname that tells pandas which sheet to gather the data from. You can use either the sheet name or the sheet number for this process. 

You can also use the ExcelFile class when you want to work with multiple sheets that are within the same Excel file. Use ExcelFile and then pass it to read_excel method. There’s quite a bit more you can do using this method, including using various methods to capture the information you need.

You can parse data in Excel rather directly and quickly using this method. However, as you learn about parsing data in Excel, you may also want to consider the other strategies available to help you with that process.

How to Parse Text in Excel Using Libraries 

Another route to take is to use libraries. Libraries like openpyxl and xlrd allow developers to programmatically access Excel spreadsheets, select specific sheets, filter rows and columns, and clean or transform the data as needed. 

• Openpyxl is a Python library that allows you to read and write Excel 2010 xlsx, xlsm, xltx, xltm files. This library will be the ideal introduction to your parsing project if you are using Python. This library allows Python programs to both read and modify what’s in Excel files. 
• Xlrd is another Python library that enables the reading and formatting of data into Excel files when they are in the older .xls format. This allows for extracting data from spreadsheets, including details like colors, fonts, and borders. 

For those who parse Excel data, using one of these two Python libraries is straightforward. 

Using Parse Function in Excel

Are you looking for another way to learn how to parse Excel? You can use the Excel formula parser if you would like to do so. To do this, follow these steps:

• Open up your Excel spreadsheet. Open it to the data you want to parse. 
• Choose the column that contains the specific data that you want to parse. 
• Then, click on “Data” and “Text to Columns.” From there, the Text to Columns wizard window will open up and display.
• The first step requires you to select “Delimited” and then click on “Next.”
• The next step requires you to select the appropriate delimiter. Then, click on “Next.” 
• In the third step, choose “General.” This allows you to preview what data will appear in the Data preview window. Once you reach the goal you desire, click “Finish.” 

This really is all it takes to use the most basic tools for Excel data parsing. Of course, this is not always enough for all projects.

What Needs to Be Done in Data Parsing in Excel

Parsing data with Excel includes numerous steps. The steps you need to take are all dependent on what you plan to do with the data, but also on the current condition of that data. Some of the steps that you may have to take include:

• Handling missing data or missing values 
• Converting data types from one format to another so that it can be used in various other applications
• Navigating more complex formatting, including merged cells or multiple headers 

With so many complicated components to the process, it is critical to find a method of data parsing Excel that fits your project and then learn to perfect it. You can choose the proper libraries and tools to help you based on any type of project you are taking on, and with so many customization options, it may be easier than you realize to get just the data you need out and usable.

When Do You Need to Use Data Parsing in Excel?

Not every project needs to have data parsing in Excel as a component of the functionality. However, parsing data in Excel with a formula or without a formula may be necessary for a range of needs and applications, such as:

• Automating workflows so that the web parsing reduces the amount of human interaction that is needed to complete various tasks (and that means using your human talent for more complicated matters) 
• Integrating spreadsheets with databases. It is not always easy for these two types of workflow components to work together, but with the ability to parse data with Excel, you can transform the data so that you can use them together in the best possible way. 
• Prep data for machine learning or statistical modeling. This method is becoming increasingly important for elevating the steps you are taking to make good use of data.

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Let’s remember why you need to parse data with Excel. As a business owner, you have valuable data available to you now that is locked in an Excel sheet. For whatever reason, that data may be richly appointed with the data you need. However, it may be hard to navigate.

With the use of data parsing in Excel, you can use that data in numerous ways, including as a component of your business intelligence. You can even use this to help your business succeed. Let Rayobyte help you with the process. Use our web scraping API to capture the data you need to create an Excel file. You can also use our proxies to help protect your identity throughout the process. Ready to learn more? Contact us.

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