How to read and import Excel files in R with tidyverse?

Use the readxl package to import contents of an Excel file from your file into a DataFrame

library ("readxl")
xlsx_path = path_to_excel
sheet_name = sheet_to_import
your_df <-read_excel (xlsx_path, sheet_name)

Make sure to install the readxl library (or the tidyverse library) into RStudio or other R development environment before calling it from your script.

Import Excel files into RStudio – Practical Example

Step 1: Import the readxl library

First off, ensure that the readxl library, which is part of Tidyverse, is installed in RStudio, Jupyter or your R dev tool of choice.

if (!require(readxl)) {
  install.packages("readxl")
}

Note: If Tidyverse is installed in your environment, you can omit this step.

Step 2: Define the path to your Excel file

Next we will create a variable storing the path and optionally the sheet name/s to import. In our case we will import a simple dataset containing BI courses information.

library ("readxl")
xlsx_path = "C:\\Temp\\Courses_Data.xlsx" 
sheet_name = "Courses"

Step 3: Import your Excel sheet

We will now use the read_excel function to import the contents of the workbook and worksheet defined in the previous step:

read_excel (xlsx_path, sheet_name)

The RStudio console will now display the contents of our file.

Step 4: Save your Excel worksheet content as a DataFrame

The read_excel function returns a DataFrame object we can persist as needed and use for analysis and data visualization:

courses_df <- read_excel (xlsx_path, sheet_name)

Step 5: Check the contents of your DataFrame in RStudio

From the Data section in your RStudio Environment Tab, hit your DataFrame name and browse the data.