# Read in .shared file?

**URL:** <https://forum.mothur.org/t/read-in-shared-file/194>\
**Category:** Commands in mothur\
**Created:** [April 14, 2010, 8:18pm UTC](https://forum.mothur.org/t/read-in-shared-file/194 "2010-04-14T20:18:47Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![mbakker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@mbakker](https://forum.mothur.org/u/mbakker)\
**Post date:** [April 14, 2010, 8:18pm UTC](https://forum.mothur.org/t/read-in-shared-file/194/1 "2010-04-14T20:18:47Z")

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Is it possible to read in a .shared file (the one with a column for each OTU and a row for each group, listing the abundance of each OTU in each group)?  
I’m trying to figure out how to do a transformation on my OTU abundance data prior to calculating similarity metrics. My best idea so far is to move the .shared file into R to do the transformation… but then can I get the transformed data back into mothur?  
Thanks!

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![pschloss](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex036/user_avatar/forum.mothur.org/pschloss/32/4_2.png) [@pschloss](https://forum.mothur.org/u/pschloss)\
**Post date:** [April 16, 2010, 11:27am UTC](https://forum.mothur.org/t/read-in-shared-file/194/2 "2010-04-16T11:27:16Z")

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absolutely…

read.otu(shared=…)  
dist.shared(calc=…)

Is this what you wanted?