Setup – Library Carpentry: Introduction to OpenRefine

Getting ready

You need to install OpenRefine and download a data file to follow this lesson.

Installing and running OpenRefine

You can download OpenRefine from http://openrefine.org/download.html. This lesson has been tested with all versions of OpenRefine up to the latest tested version, 3.2.

If you are using an older version, it is recommended you upgrade to the latest tested version.

There are versions for Windows, macOS and Linux.

Please follow the installation instructions on the OpenRefine wiki: Installation Instructions

Notes:

When you download OpenRefine for Windows or Linux from the address above, you are downloading a zip file. To install OpenRefine you unzip the downloaded file wherever you want to install the program. This can be to a personal directory or to an applications or software directory - OpenRefine should run wherever you put the unzipped folder. The location has to be a “local” drive as problems have been reported trying to run OpenRefine from a Network drive.
OpenRefine is a Java application, and you need to have a ‘Java Runtime Environment’ (JRE) installed on your computer to run OpenRefine. If you don’t already have one installed then you can download and install from http://java.com by going to the site and clicking “Free Java Download”.
OpenRefine does not support Internet Explorer or Edge. Please use Firefox, Chrome or Safari instead.

Downloading the data

Download DOAJ_small.csv and DOAJ_big.csv, which are csv files that will open in a new browser tab. Instead of doing that, right-click or control-click in order to save the file (NOTE: In Safari, right click and select download linked file; in Chrome and Firefox, right click and select save link as…). Make a note of the location (i.e. the folder, your desktop) to which you save the file.

Getting help

If you encounter problems installing or running OpenRefine, a good source of support is the OpenRefine mailing list and forum.

If you are installing OpenRefine on Windows, you may want to check the forum for ‘Windows’ related threads or specific threads like Installing OpenRefine on Windows 7.

There are also general and specialist tutorials about using OpenRefine available on the web, including: