What is OpenRefine?
OpenRefine is a free, open source, Java application, that runs offline in a web browser.
The original creator, David Huynh, describes Refine as:
“A power tool for working with messy data”
- more powerful than a spreadsheet
- more interactive and visual than scripting
- more provisional / exploratory / experimental / playful than a database
Exciting Trailers from Google!
If you want a visual introduction, check out these trailers from Google created for an earlier version called GoogleRefine:
Tabular Data
Refine can handle all sorts of data from all sorts of sources:
- Import formats: TSV, CSV, custom separator, Excel, ODF spreadsheet, XML, JSON, RDF, Google Sheets, MARC…
- Import sources: local file, archive (zip), URL, clipboard, database, or Google Sheets
- Output formats: TSV, CSV, HTML, Excel, ODF spreadsheet, SQL, Wikidata, RDF schema, or custom template
Once imported, the data is represented as tabular, using this basic terminology:
Refine is efficient enough to provide comfortable performance up to 100,000’s of rows (although, you may want to increase memory allocated to Java).
Use Cases
Explore - navigate and evaluate quality with visualizations and filters that help dig deeply into the data so you can get to know it better…
Clean - efficiently discover and fix inconsistency with faceting, clustering, cell transforms, GREL expressions…
Transform - easily change formats, subset, or reshape with split/join multi valued cells, split columns, transpose columns/rows…
Extend - enrich data by combining files, merging projects, fetching URLs, reconciliation with online databases…
Automate - record and preserve your processing routine for transparency, then automate reuse by exporting operation history in JSON!