1. Installing OpenRefine
Support Group:

2. Downloading OpenRefine
From this page you can download OpenRefine 2.6 (beta) and Google Refine 2.5.
I recommend using OpenRefine 2.6 (beta). Although it is a ‘beta’ version, it has been available for over 2 years and has proved to be reliable and stable during that time.
This page also has links to a number of separately maintained ‘forks’ of OpenRefine. In particular ‘LODRefine’ has been a popular fork for libraries.

3. Before installing OpenRefine
In order to use OpenRefine you need to have a “Java SE Runtime Environment” (or JRE) installed. You may already have this installed.
Check if you have a JRE installed:
Windows: Open a command (cmd) prompt ( prompt-window)
Mac: Open a terminal window (
Linux: Open a terminal window
Type “java -version”

4. Java Version
You should see something like (versions maybe different but you should have 1.7 or 1.8 generally):
java -version
java version "1.7.0_11"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build _11-b21)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build b04, mixed mode)

5. Install Java http://java.com
If you don’t have Java installed, you can download and install from:

6. Java variables
Sometimes you need to tell your computer where Java is installed in order for ‘java -version’ to work
You can do this by setting the ‘JAVA_HOME’ variable, and making sure this is in your ‘PATH’
Some (very) brief instructions at /inst_cli_jdk_javahome_t/
For Windows some better directions at java_home-variable-in-windows-8895.html

7. Installing OpenRefine
Once you have downloaded OpenRefine and have Java installed, you’ll want to install OpenRefine. On Windows this is slightly different to the usual software installation process:
Mac: Use the installation tool
Windows: Unzip/extract the downloaded files to where ever you want to install the s/w (this must be a folder on your local hard drive - OpenRefine doesn’t seem to react well to being on a network drive)
Linux: Unzip/extract the downloaded files to where ever you want to install the s/w

8. Running OpenRefine
Mac: Click the OpenRefine icon in your Applications folder (or elsewhere if you installed elsewhere)
Windows: Navigate to the folder where you extracted OpenRefine, and click the ‘Refine.exe’
Linux: Navigate to the folder where you extracted OpenRefine in a terminal and type ‘./refine’

9. Using OpenRefine
When you run OpenRefine it should open a browser window and show the OpenRefine interface. If this doesn’t happen, try opening a browser and going to:
OpenRefine doesn’t work well with Internet Explorer, so if the browser window that opens is IE (it will just use your default browser), open an alternative browser (e.g. Firefox, Chrome) and type the URL into that instead.