| iTool User's Guide: Importing and Exporting Data |

## Data Import Methods

Data items in the Data Manager are available to all iTools until it they are removed. You can bring data into the iTool Data Manager in the following ways:

- Using the Data Import Wizard (File Import)

- By opening a data file directly (File Open)

- Using the Import Variable ... or Import File... buttons on the Data Manager dialog (Window Data Manager)

- By specifying data parameters at the IDL command line. For example, specifying the following at the IDL command line:

    iPlot, myDataVariable

places the variable `myDataVariable` in the Data Manager.

These methods are described in the following sections.

- Using the Data Import Wizard

- Using File Open

- Using the Data Manager Dialog

- Importing Data from the IDL Session

Note Once data has been imported into the iTool and is visible in the Data Manager, there are a numerous ways to visualize the data. To learn more about visualizing data, see Visualizations.

IDL Online Help (March 01, 2006)