lines = 'Country Ratio_Width_to_Height Afghanistan 0.500 Albania 0.714 Algeria 0.667 Angola 0.667 Argentina 0.667 Bahamas 0.500 Denmark 0.757 Djibouti 0.553 Ecuador 0.500 Egypt 0.667 El_Salvador 0.600 Nepal 1.250 Estonia 0.667 Ethiopia 0.500 Gabon 0.750 Fiji 0.500 France 0.667 Honduras 0.500 Iceland 0.720 Iran 0.571 Israel 0.727 Laos 0.667 Lebanon 0.667 Liberia 0.526 Macedonia 0.500 Mexico 0.571 Monaco 0.800 Namibia 0.667 Romania 0.667 Rwanda 0.667 South_Africa 0.667 St_Helena 0.500 Sweden 0.625 United_Kingdom 0.500' con = textConnection( lines ) DF = read.table( con, header=TRUE ) close(con)