Opening the file in Excel or Sheets

Both the CSV and XLS exports open in any mainstream spreadsheet. Here's how to open each cleanly and tidy up the occasional column that imports oddly.

Once you've downloaded a race card, opening it is straightforward in any spreadsheet. A couple of small quirks are worth knowing so the columns line up the way you expect.

Opening the file

• Excel, double-click an XLS file to open the formatted workbook directly. For a CSV, Excel opens it too, though very occasionally it needs a hand with column formats (below).
• Google Sheets, use File, Import and upload the file, CSV works especially cleanly here.
• Numbers (Mac), open either format directly.

If a column looks wrong

Spreadsheets sometimes guess a column's type and get it slightly wrong on import. The usual suspects:

• A time or figure read as a date. If a value has turned into a date, format that column back to text or number. Importing a CSV via your spreadsheet's import dialog (rather than a straight open) lets you set the column type up front and avoids this.
• Leading zeros dropped. Set the column to text before importing if you need them kept.

Taking the XLS export sidesteps most of this, since the formatting travels with the workbook. Reach for CSV when you want the raw values to feed into your own model or scripts.

Making sense of the columns

For what each heading means once the file's open, keep the ratings columns reference to hand.