[R] R and Excel

Erich Neuwirth erich.neuwirth at univie.ac.at
Thu Jan 8 19:57:56 CET 2009


Can't you just set a link to our server?
I do not know how to embed it.
I used Camtasia to produce this video, and it
does all the embedding.


Ajay ohri wrote:
> Hi Erich,
> 
> I would like to share and embed the RExcel Training video (just like
> youtube allows me to) . How can I do that ?
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Ajay
> 
> www.decisionstats.com <http://www.decisionstats.com>
> 
> 
> On Fri, Jan 9, 2009 at 12:20 AM, Ajay ohri <ohri2007 at gmail.com
> <mailto:ohri2007 at gmail.com>> wrote:
> 
>     Hi Erich,
> 
>     I saw that it uses a remote server ( which can be the same machine )
>     to compute.
> 
> 
>     Here is the question-
> 
>     What is the remote server is Amazon EC2 which has upscalaing and
>     downscaling facillity for RAM and CPU...
> 
>     Will it work ?
> 
>     is there a SaaS version of this?
> 
>     Regards,
> 
>     Ajay
>     On Thu, Jan 8, 2009 at 11:56 PM, Erich Neuwirth
>     <erich.neuwirth at univie.ac.at <mailto:erich.neuwirth at univie.ac.at>>
>     wrote:
> 
>         There is RExcel (available by downloading the CRAN package
>         RExcelInstaller. It allows to transfer data between R and Excel,
>         and run R code from within Excel. So you can start with your data in
>         Excel, let R do an analysis, and transfer the results back to Excel.
>         You can write VBA macros which do this, but "hidden from exposure",
>         so the Excel user does not even notice that R is doing the hatd
>         work.
>         It also has an Excel worksheet function RApply which allows
>         to call an R function from an Excel cell formula.
>         =RApply("rfun",A1)
>         would apply the R function rfun to the value in cell A1.
>         If the value in A1 changes, Excel will force R to recalculate
>         the formula.
> 
>         There is a (half hour long) video demo about RExcel
>         at http://rcom.univie.ac.at/RExcelDemo/
> 
>         http://rcom.univie.ac.at/ has more information about the project.
>         For recent information, visit the Wiki on this site.
> 
>         This site also has the alpha version of an OpenOffice add-in
>         giving roughly the same functionality.
>         It is available at
>         http://rcom.univie.ac.at/download/ROOo/
> 
> 
>         The main source of information about this project is
>         the mailing list. You can subscribe also via the project server,
>         http://rcom.univie.ac.at
> 
> 
> 
>         ohri2007 at gmail.com <mailto:ohri2007 at gmail.com> wrote:
>         > Even using the VBA back of Excel to create interfaces with R would
>         > make a lot of sense. Suppose I could have access to VBA macros
>         that
>         > import and export data into R , it would be great.
>         >
>         > The R GUI series like Rattle come even closer to Excel...so a VBA
>         > _R_ExCel package might  be useful to ordinary folks .
>         >
>         > Besides Excel costs money, so adding R functions to Open
>         Office would
>         > help both of them ( if not attempted already)
>         >
>         > Regards,
>         >
>         > Ajay
>         >
>         > www.decisionstats.com <http://www.decisionstats.com>
>         >
>         > On 1/8/09, Stavros Macrakis <macrakis at alum.mit.edu
>         <mailto:macrakis at alum.mit.edu>> wrote:
>         >>> "Some people familiar with R describe it as a supercharged
>         version of
>         >>> Microsoft's Excel spreadsheet software..."
>         >>>
>         >> It is easy to ridicule this line from the NYT article.  But
>         this is not only
>         >> a very sensible comment by a smart reporter, but also one
>         that is good for
>         >> R:
>         >>
>         >> It is good for R because it explains the new (R) in terms of
>         the familiar
>         >> (Excel).  Of course R can do far more than Excel ever could,
>         but most
>         >> readers will not be familiar with boxplots, let alone
>         studentized bootstrap
>         >> confidence intervals, yet R is useful even for elementary
>         analyses.
>         >>
>         >> It is good for R because it will bring us new users.  I have
>         often looked
>         >> over the shoulders of Excel users struggling to do analyses
>         or construct
>         >> graphics that are just slightly beyond what Excel makes easy.
>         Perhaps the
>         >> dataset is too large, or the analysis doesn't fit into the
>         spreadsheet
>         >> model, or the analysis isn't built-in (and so requires either
>         many manual
>         >> steps, or Visual Basic programming, or an expensive add-on
>         package), or it
>         >> requires data sources that Excel doesn't handle well, or it
>         has gotten so
>         >> complicated that it is unmaintainable in spreadsheet form.  R
>         scales better
>         >> in every way: in size of problem, in complexity of analysis,
>         in data
>         >> sources.
>         >>
>         >> It is good for R because it makes it sound unthreatening and
>         easy, both for
>         >> the person who might consider using R rather than Excel, and
>         for his/her
>         >> management.  Of course, R is not trivial to learn, but you
>         don't have to
>         >> master everything about it to get useful results (just like
>         Excel, I might
>         >> add).
>         >>
>         >> It is good for R because it reminds us that there are other
>         useful computing
>         >> paradigms that we can learn from. The spreadsheet model,
>         including instant
>         >> update, is compelling for a wide range of problems.  I have
>         not used any of
>         >> the R/Excel interface packages, but presumably they combine
>         the advantages
>         >> of the approaches. Perhaps there is room for not just
>         integrating R with
>         >> Excel, but for incorporating the core ideas of Excel into R
>         in some
>         >> intelligent way.
>         >>
>         >> It is good for R because it shows areas where R can be
>         improved.  Excel
>         >> makes it very easy to present tabular data and format it.  It
>         makes it very
>         >> easy to work with summary/contingency tables (pivot tables)
>         interactively
>         >> and only a little more difficult to do drill-down.  In all
>         cases, its
>         >> functionality is limited, but what it can do, it does well.
>         >>
>         >> It is good for R because it reminds us that there are many
>         people using
>         >> other tools who could benefit from outreach from the R
>         community, both
>         >> through tools (smoother interoperability) and through education.
>         >>
>         >> All in all, characterizing R as a supercharged version of
>         Excel makes a lot
>         >> of sense.
>         >>
>         >>          -s
>         >>
>         >>      [[alternative HTML version deleted]]
>         >>
>         >> ______________________________________________
>         >> R-help at r-project.org <mailto:R-help at r-project.org> mailing list
>         >> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
>         >> PLEASE do read the posting guide
>         http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
>         >> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible
>         code.
>         >>
>         >
>         >
>         >
>         >
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> 
>         --
>         Erich Neuwirth, University of Vienna
>         Faculty of Computer Science
>         Computer Supported Didactics Working Group
>         Visit our SunSITE at http://sunsite.univie.ac.at
>         Phone: +43-1-4277-39464 Fax: +43-1-4277-39459
> 
> 
> 
> 
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-- 
Erich Neuwirth, University of Vienna
Faculty of Computer Science
Computer Supported Didactics Working Group
Visit our SunSITE at http://sunsite.univie.ac.at
Phone: +43-1-4277-39464 Fax: +43-1-4277-39459




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