Skip to ContentSkip to Navigation
Research Ruimtelijke Economie Groningen IRIOS

IRIOS FAQ

IRIOS Frequently Asked Questions

1) My spreadsheet setup of the table is correct, but after exporting IRIOS can't read my .tbl file

First of all, you spreadsheet setup may NOT be correct. The five table parameters in A1-A5 must match your table setup (see also faq 3). Don't forget to put zeros in all cells that have no value otherwise, IRIOS does not accept empty table cells! Sometimes this is forgotten in the lower right quadrant of the table (the primary costs of other final demand), were there are many undefined cells that still need to contain a zero. Also be sure that the empty separator columns and rows do NOT contain zeros, they should really be empty.

When exporting to CSV format, some spreadsheets (like QPRO) do not add extra comma's for possible empty cells in the remaining part of a line. This may go wrong for line 3 and 4 of the table which contain the column labels. If the table has 100 columns, IRIOS also expects 100 columns in line 3 and 4, empty or not. To be sure, add the label "total" in the last column, both in line 3 and line 4 (note that this problem may arise in the example below in faq 3, were there are two empty label cells at the end of line 4 after "foreign").

You don't need to do this for line1 and line2, but if you use QPRO you can stumble upon a minor bug of IRIOS (note: fixed in version 1.3). CSV-export puts double quotation marks around a label that contains a comma in itself like "i-o table 1998, 2000-RAS update". When line 2 in the .tbl file is < "tabel name, 1998" > or < tablename,> there is no problem. When line 2 is <tablename> without a comma, however, the table is not read correctly by IRIOS. Solution: change line 2 < tablename> into <tablename,>  in your .tbl file with a text editor, or add one extra label "dummy" in B2 of your QPRO spreadsheet. Then QPRO will export line 2 as <tablename,dummy> and IRIOS will have no problem loading the file.

Excel is not known of creating any of these problems. Older DOS spreadsheets like Lotus, QPRO-DOS, or Supercalc also work fine in this respect.

2) IRIOS reports errors in row- and column totals but they are correct in my spreadsheet

Be sure to have your screen display show all the decimal places you need before exporting to CSV format. A row with 10 cells containing 0.01 will have a row total of 0.1, but only one decimal place display will result in writing 10 cells "0.0" and a row total of "0.1" to CSV format. Then of course IRIOS will tell you that you have a wrong row total.

Be aware that IRIOS accepts a maximal margin of 5% difference between the counted totals and the totals themselves, and between the row totals and their corresponding column totals! Small absolute differences which are nevertheless more than 5% are usually caused by rounding and/or not enough decimal places when writing.

3) How do I set up a national table, when I don't need the distinction between regional and other final demand?

Also in a national i-o table it makes sense to have a category like household consumption be "regional final demand" and foreign exports "other final demand".
If you do not want that, set the number of regional final demand categories to zero in the first row of your spreadsheet that has the five dimension parameters.
Beware, however, that in that case you still need the empty separator column between the intermediate block and the (empty) regional final demand block. Your spreadsheet setup would then look like this:

Click here for the picture

and after loading IRIOS will show:

Click here for the picture

4) When generating my .TBL file with other software some lines are broken into more separate lines

This is no problem as long as each line ends with a comma. The first two rows of numbers of  for example a single region 28*28 table with 1 regional demand category and 1 other final demand category can look like:

region name,sector1,
    0.79,    0.05,    0.53,    0.55,    0.42,   0.55,    0.29,    0.64,
    0.91,    0.53,    0.73,    0.85,    0.74,   1.21,    1.33,    0.82,
    0.76,    0.33,    0.66,    0.68,    0.45,   0.19,    0.80,    0.95,
    1.64,    0.01,    1.15,    0.71,,   32.4,,   29.30,, 80.97,
region name,sector2,
    0.79,    0.05,    0.53,    0.55,    0.42,   0.55,    0.29,    0.64,
    0.91,    0.53,    0.73,    0.85,    0.74,   1.21,    1.33,    0.82,
    0.76,    0.33,    0.66,    0.68,    0.45,   0.19,    0.80,    0.95,
    1.64,    0.01,    1.15,    0.71,,   32.4,,   29.30,, 80.97,

note the three blank separator columns, one after the last intermediate cell "0.71", after the regional final demand "32.4" and after the other final demand "29.30".

Tip: When you have successfully converted your i-o table into .TBL format, and for some reason you may want to get rid of broken lines in the .TBL file, load the table into IRIOS and go to Edit/Save Table. Type another file/table name and IRIOS writes your new .TBL file without broken lines. This is convenient if you want to load the .TBL file directly into a spreadsheet with the correct setup. See also FAQ5.

5) Can I use new spreadsheet releases that go beyond the 256th column IV for large IRIOS tables?

Yes for reading and partly no for writing. In WordPerfect Office 2002, the spreadsheet release QuatroPro10 can have as much as 18.278 columns (up to column ZZZ), so you can set up even very large tables in the standard IRIOS spreadsheet layout. Importing large .tbl files directly into QPRO works fine, but before you do so, first set your maximum number of columns in QPRO in Options/Settings/Compatibility to the desired number.

Beware, however, that when loading a .tbl file directly into spreadsheet, the resulting layout will depend upon how the lines in the .TBL file are set up. In the example shown in FAQ4, for instance, importing the .tbl file directly will put each separate line also on a separate line in QPRO. If in such a case you want a spreadsheet file with the correct IRIOS layout, load the table into IRIOS first, mark the whole table by clicking the mouse in the upper left cell, and then copy/paste it into QPRO. Or, let IRIOS itself write the table to a new .tbl file and then import this new .tbl file into QPRO (see also the tip in FAQ4).

When exporting a large table from QPRO to a .TBL file (in CSV format, see manual), however, Windows does not support CSV-export beyond the 256th column. As long as this is so (there is nothing we can do about it but complaining),  you will have to break up your lines into shorter ones shorter then 256 columns (just as is done in FAQ4) first, and then export to the .TBL-file in CSV format.

6) Copy/paste from my spreadsheet into IRIOS does not work correctly

This is a Windows problem. Check your Regional Settings in the Windows Control Panel. Your number decimal symbol must be a point "." not a comma ",".

Last modified:01 April 2016 12.07 p.m.