U.S. Bureau of the Census Manufacturing and Construction Division Residential Construction Branch (301) 457-1321 Building Permits Survey Nonresidential Data Documentation This diskette contains the following files: READMENR.TXT The file you are now reading. ORDERNR.TXT Ordering information for nonresidential data. STNRDSK.TXT Documentation for ASCII file of building permit data by State. MANRDSK.TXT Documentation for ASCII file of building permit data by Metropolitan Area (MA). PLNRDSK.TXT Documentation for ASCII file of building permit data by individual permit office. ITEMS.TXT Definitions of codes used for types of construction. IMPUTE.TXT Documentation for building permit imputation procedure. CODES.EXE Compressed, comma delimited, ASCII files of FIPS State, MSA, and County codes along with their alpha name. To extract from compressed format, just type CODES and enter. Spreadsheet header files: STNRHDR.TXT State data files. MSANRHDR.TXT MSA data files. PLNRCHDR.TXT Place data current month and revised files. PLNRYHDR.TXT Place data year-to-date files. PLNRAHDR.TXT Place data annual files. The data files are all comma delimited ASCII files. These can be imported to most software packages. To assist in generating headings in spreadsheet files, add the header files supplied to the data files. Also, to allow importing to some packages, the file names using the old naming convention must be renamed to end in "TXT". Adding column headers to a file is done as follows: Exit to DOS COPY STNRHDR.TXT + ST9401.CM ST9401C.TXT Then go to your spreadsheet and do a "File Open" on the ST9401C.TXT file. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- **Detailed Example For Importing Permits Files to Microsoft Excel: There are many different software packages for file management. For this example, we will use Microsoft Explorer. Open Microsoft Explorer (should be under Start-Programs - may be known as Windows Explorer) Under the left window, called "All Folders", click once on the C: drive icon. From the pull down menus at the top, click File-New-Folder to create a new folder. This creates a folder in the right hand window named "New Folder". Just type "Permits" to rename that folder to "Permits." Put the sample disk we provided in the A: drive. Under "All Folders", double click the A: icon to see all files on this disk (you may have to scroll up to see the A: drive.) Highlight all files on the sample disk (this can be done by clicking once on the first file and holding the shift key while clicking once on the last file.) Click in the highlighted area and drag these files to the "C:\Permits" folder (permits folder will be highlighted. Switch the disk in the A: drive to the data disk. Under "All Folders", double click the A: icon again to see the data file(s). Highlight the file or files that you want to use and drag them to the "C:\Permits" folder. Double click on the "C:\Permits" folder to see the files now stored on your hard disk. If you do not see the filename extensions, such as ".txt" and ".exe", click on the pull down option "View", select "Options", and click on the box next to "Hide File Extensions" to remove that checkmark and then select "OK". To extract the ASCII files from the compressed format, double click on each file with the ".EXE" extension. One file from the sample disk has an ".EXE" extension, "CODES.EXE". This contains three files of ASCII FIPS codes for states, MSAs and counties. The remaining ".EXE" files in the permits folder are the data files. After double clicking the ".EXE" files to extract the ASCII data, you may need to click on the file pull down menu "View" and click "Refresh" to see all files again. Close the Explorer. Go to the MSDOS prompt. Type: cd \Permits Use the dos copy command to add the appropriate header file to the data file. The format for the copy command is Copy HeaderFile + DataFile File3 File3 can be any name you want to use, except it should have a ".TXT" extension. Examples: Nonresidential state file for 1994 annual - copy stnrhdr.txt + st94 state94.txt Residential msa file for June 1993 year-to-date - copy msanrhdr.txt + msa9306.ytd msa9306.txt Residential midwest place file for 1990 annual - copy plnrahdr.txt + mw90 mw1990.txt Residential south place file for March 1988 year-to-date - copy plnryhdr.txt + so8803.ytd so8803.txt Residential northeast place file for May 1994 current month - copy plnrchdr.txt + ne9405.cm ne9405.txt Repeat this copy command for as many files as you want to load. Type: exit The output files created above can be loaded into any spreadsheet as a comma delimited ASCII file. For example, let's load STATE94.TXT into Excel: Run Excel Click File - Open Under "Look in" go to the folder, C:\Permits Next to "Files of Type" select Text Files Double click the text file you want to open, STATE94.TXT for this example Select "Original Data Type" of delimited Click "Next" Click Button next to "Comma" for delimiter Click "Next" Select FIPS State column and select "Column Data Format" of text (this will allow the table to retain the leadng zeros and not change the codes to numbers.) Click "Finish" You now have a spreadsheet of 1994 annual building permits by state.