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Paste data into Rstudio from a spreadsheet

Source: R/paste_from_xl.R
paste_from_xl.Rd

Imports spreadsheet data from the user's clipboard to RStudio. Also, copies full file paths if copied from an OS file navigation window.

Imported data formats in 1 of 2 ways.

  1. If pasting to the console window, 'ctrl+alt+shift+v' will insert a tibble or vector of the copied spreadsheet data.

  2. If pasting to the text editor window, 'ctrl+alt+shift+v' will insert an expression to produce the spreadsheet data.

To set the quick keys, use set_xlr_key_chords()

  • If pasting multiple spreadsheet rows, the data imports as a tibble.

  • If pasting a single spreadsheet row with multiple columns, the data imports as a vector.

  • If pasting folder and file paths from an OS navigation window, the data imports as a vector.

Usage

paste_from_xl(has_fieldnames = NULL)

Arguments

has_fieldnames

TRUE or FALSE indicating whether field names are present in the spreadsheet data you copied. If user supplies no value, paste_from_xl() guesses by looking at the clipboard data. If the function incorrectly guesses the presence of field names, just place T or F into the function echoed to the console. If has_fieldnames is set to either TRUE or FALSE, the data always imports as a tibble.

Value

** If user copied a single spreadsheet row or column into clipboard memory, returns a vector. ** If user copied more than one spreadsheet row or column to the clipboard, returns a tibble. ** If user copied a local file to the clipboard, returns a string with the path to the file.

Details

To set the quick keys in RStudio, run function: set_xlr_key_chords(). Or, set the quick keys manually by following these RStudio instructions: https://support.posit.co/hc/en-us/articles/206382178-Customizing-Keyboard-Shortcuts-in-the-RStudio-IDE

In Windows, path copying and pasting from a navigation window into R requires that a Powershell script be callable from the command prompt. (Sometimes Powershell might be disabled.)

Note

If you're copying a very large quantity of data from a spreadsheet, try reading in the data instead with readxl::read_excel().

Examples

if(interactive()){

# Copy data from a spreadsheet into working memory by right-clicking
# with your mouse and selecting 'copy', or by using 'ctrl + c'.
# Paste the copied spreadsheet data into R by typing into the R console:
(my_data <- paste_from_xl())

paste_from_xl()


}