index.Rmd

---
title: "Spreadsheet Munging Strategies"
author: "Duncan Garmonsway"
site: bookdown::bookdown_site
documentclass: book
---

# Welcome {-}

This is a work-in-progress book about getting data out of spreadsheets, no
matter how peculiar.  The book is designed primarily for R users who have to
extract data from spreadsheets and who are already familiar with the
[tidyverse](https://www.tidyverse.org).  It has a cookbook structure, and can be
used as a reference, but readers who begin in the middle might have to work
backwards from time to time.

R packages that feature heavily are

* [unpivotr](https://nacnudus.github.io/unpivotr): deals with non-tabular data,
  especially from spreadsheets.
* [tidyxl](https://nacnudus.github.io/tidyxl): imports non-tabular data from
  Excel files

Tidyxl and unpivotr are much more complicated than readxl, and that’s the point.
Tidyxl and unpivotr give you more power and complexity when you need it.

Please help me to improve this book by [opening a GitHub
issue](https://github.com/nacnudus/spreadsheet-munging-strategies/issues) or
[tweeting](https://twitter.com/nacnudus).

#### Other ways to learn

Some resources give directions in the old way, using compass directions.  See
`?unpivotr::direction` for their modern counterparts.

* [YouTube videos](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrw0ScBCFSbk_lgkjyg4ucw)
* [Worked example code](https://github.com/nacnudus/ukfarm)
* [Blog post on `readr::melt_csv()`](https://nacnudus.github.io/duncangarmonsway/posts/2018-12-29-meltcsv/)

---

![Creative Commons License](images/by-nc-sa.png)

The online version of this book is licensed under the [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).