How to Import an Excel File into R (example included)

July 16, 2021

Looking to import an Excel file into R?

If so, you’ll see the full steps to import your file using the readxl package.

To start, here is a template that you can use to import an Excel file into R:

library("readxl")
read_excel("Path where your Excel file is stored\\File Name.xlsx")

And if you want to import a specific sheet within the Excel file, then you may use this template:

library("readxl")
read_excel("Path where your Excel file is stored\\File Name.xlsx",sheet = "Your sheet name")

Note: For previous versions of Excel, use the file extension of .xls

Steps to Import an Excel file Into R

Step 1: Install the readxl package

In the R Console, type the following command to install the readxl package:

install.packages("readxl")

Follow the instructions to complete the installation. You may want to check the following guide that explains how to install a package in R.

Step 2: Prepare your Excel File

Let’s suppose that you have an Excel file with some data about products:

Product Price
Refrigerator 1200
Oven 750
Dishwasher 900
Coffee Maker 300

And let’s say that the Excel file name is product_list, and your goal is to import that file into R.

Step 3: Import the Excel file into R

In order to import your file, you’ll need to apply the following template in the R Editor:

library("readxl")
read_excel("Path where your Excel file is stored\\File Name.xlsx")

For demonstration purposes, let’s assume that an Excel file is stored under the following path:

C:\\Users\\Ron\\Desktop\\Test\\product_list.xlsx

Where:

  • product_list is the actual file name; and
  • .xlsx is the Excel file extension. For previous versions of Excel, use the file extension of .xls

Note that a double backslash (‘\\’) was used within the path name. By adding a double backslash, you’ll avoid the following error in R:

Error: ‘\U’ used without hex digits in character string starting “”C:\U”

Here is the complete code to import the Excel file for our example:

library("readxl")
read_excel("C:\\Users\\Ron\\Desktop\\Test\\product_list.xlsx")

You’ll need to adjust the path to reflect the location where the Excel file is stored on your computer. Once you run the code in R, you’ll get the same values as in the Excel file:

  Product       Price
1 Refrigerator   1200
2 Oven            750
3 Dishwasher      900
4 Coffee Maker    300

Alternatively, you may also want to check the following guide that explains how to export your data to an Excel file.