Import WoSIS snapshot tsv files in excel
This page will guide you to import WoSIS Snapshot tsv files into excel, using the example of WoSIS snapshot 2023.
Download the Zipfile
a) Download the zip file from: https://data.isric.org/geonetwork/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/e50f84e1-aa5b-49cb-bd6bcd581232a2ec (see also the ReadMe).
b) Unzip the zipfile to your desired folder
Open the tsv in Excel
c) Open Excel
d) Go to the ‘Data’ tab, then select ‘From Text/CSV’ go to the folder where the snapshot files were downloaded.
e) Choose option ‘select ’All files (.)’; you will then see a list including the tsv files. Select the tsv datafile to be imported, for example ‘wosis_202312_sites.tsv’. Press ‘import’.
f) Note that the ‘file origin’ must be set to **‘65001: Unicode (URF-8)‘** and the delimeter to ’Tab’.
g) Press the ‘load’ button. The selected file will be loaded into Excel; this may take some time for the larger files
h) The imported data are now ready for use in your tailor-made programmes.
Important
The tsv files are tab-delimited, with double quotation marks as text delimiters. File origin to be considered during data import/loading is ‘65001: Unicode (UTF-8)’.
Two text fields in method_options, namely ‘value’ and ‘method_option’, contain complex text strings. There were concatenated from PostgreSQL arrays in WoSIS itself when the snapshot was created. See an example for ‘soil pH’:
{"instrument = [ electrode ] ratio = [ 1:1 ] sample pretreatment = [ sieved over 2 mm sieve ] solution = [ water [H2O] ]"}
Author: Luis Callisto (ISRIC staff) Last Updated: 09/2025, Betony Colman (ISRIC staff)
Last updated on 2025-10-16