2 easy ways to import files from a folder into Minitab

Let me ask you a question: Let’s say you have 15 excel files (or .csv) in a folder. How do you import them into Minitab?

Are you thinking in these steps?

Go to File Open Worksheet
Change the file type to Excel (or .csv or .txt)
Browse for the file and click Open
Repeat steps 1 to 3, 14 times! (one for each remaining file)

If you answered YES, you’re wasting your time!!!

There’s a quick and easy way to do this and it takes the same effort regardless of the number of files.

Open the folder that contains the excel files
Select the files you want to import ( If you want to select all files, you can press Ctrl + A. )
Drag the files to the Session Window in Minitab

Pretty impressive, right?

Importing all files in a list with a macro

A more complex scenario is that you have a list of file names that you want to import. In this case again, there are three options

Completely Manual: Import the files one by one
Semi-manual: Go to the folder, manually select the files in the list, and drag them to the Session Window in Minitab.
Automatic: Paste the list in Minitab and use a macro to import them automatically.

I hope that after reading this post you won’t use the completely manual approach anymore.

To solve this problem you can use the semi-manual approach or follow the next steps for a completely automated solution:

1 ) Paste the list of file names in Column C1 of any worksheet.

2 ) Open this macro and modify the appropriate variables

3 ) Save the macro in your Minitab Macro Folder. Make sure the file type is “All Files (*.*)”

(*) Usually the Minitab Macro Folder folder is “C:\Program Files\Minitab\Minitab 16\English\Macros”, however, you can change the path for the macros folder in Tools Options General Browse for the Macro Location OK.

4 ) Press Ctrl + L to show the Command Line Editor, Type %OpenFiles, and press Submit Commands

If you want to practice any of these methods, you can use your own files or you can download the following files:

Enjoy!!!

In the next post, I’ll explain how to append the information of all the worksheets you’ve imported.

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Orlando Mezquita

Love helping out people to get better using data analysis tools! My day job is statistician for a Pharmaceutical Company.

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View Comments

Juan Antonio says:

February 2, 2016 at 10:44 am

Orlando, I like the why you write the macro , do you know how get the p-value for a Run Chart? Don't use the graph info?
- Orlando Mezquita says:
  
  February 2, 2016 at 2:50 pm
  
  Hi Juan,
  
  Unfortunately, that's not possible since the Run Chart
  graph doesn't have a storage option. With a storage option you could be
  able to save the p-values in a worksheet.
  
  I asked your question
  to the Minitab Technical Support team and they answered me that they
  logged this request to be considered for future versions.
- Orlando Mezquita says:
  
  February 3, 2016 at 2:53 pm
  
  Hi Juan,
  
  Unfortunately, that's not possible since the Run Chart graph doesn't have a storage option. With a storage option you could be able to save the p-values in a worksheet.
  
  I asked your question to the Minitab Technical Support team and they answered me that they logged this request to be considered for future versions.
Charles says:

February 11, 2016 at 12:55 pm

I saved the macro in the located as indicated above, but when I ran the macro it gave me this error message:
* ERROR * Undefined variable, illegal column or stored constant at X.
* ERROR * Completion of computation impossible.
I am using MINITAB14 importing an .xls file. Would this make a difference?
- Orlando Mezquita says:
  
  February 14, 2016 at 8:40 pm
  
  Hi Charles,
  Did you pasted the list of file names in C1 of any worksheet?