The RATS Software Forum

I'm trying to import a data set from a text file and add column headings to the data. I can get the data in but when I print it the headings don't align to the columns. The code I'm using is:

calendar 1973 1 4;
allocate 1990:4;
open data C:\WINDOWS\Don\teaching\efm\rats\topic1\exrates.txt;
data(format=free,org=obs) / uk fr ge it ca ja;

A similar issue occurs when I print statistics for my data. The stats print but aren't alligned under their headings, making it very difficult to distinguish between them.

Thanks in advance for any help!

I'm not sure what you mean. As you have that written, the data file should have six columns of numbers, each with 72 rows. The first column will be series UK, the second FR, etc. With that set of options, there should also be no labels on the file---if you have those (and want to ignore them), use the TOP option to skip over any header rows (TOP=2 will ignore row 1).

If you do a PRINT or TABLE instruction and copy and paste the text into a word processor, the output won't line up unless you switch to a monospaced font like Courier New. If you want something fancier, read Section 1.3.2 of the Introduction about reformatting and exporting tables.