# How to build an OTU table

**URL:** https://forum.qiime2.org/t/how-to-build-an-otu-table/26900
**Category:** User Support
**Tags:** otus
**Created:** [June 27, 2023, 7:38am UTC](https://forum.qiime2.org/t/how-to-build-an-otu-table/26900 "2023-06-27T07:38:56Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 2

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### Author: ![SoilRotifer](https://forum.qiime2.org/user_avatar/forum.qiime2.org/soilrotifer/32/21071_2.png) [@SoilRotifer](https://forum.qiime2.org/u/SoilRotifer)
#### Post date: [June 27, 2023, 1:25pm UTC](https://forum.qiime2.org/t/how-to-build-an-otu-table/26900/2 "2023-06-27T13:25:56Z")

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Hi @neocat,

> [@neocat](#):
>
> I looked at the resulting taxonomy.qzv / taxonomy.qza but it only seems to contain Feature ID, Taxon, Confidence. Shouldn’t there also be columns for the actual counts, and total counts for normalization?

This is intended. If you work through the tutorials again, you'll notice that the feature-table (_i.e._ the counts table) is kept as a separate file from the taxonomy. I suggest reading through the :qiime2: [overview](https://docs.qiime2.org/2023.5/tutorials/overview/), for more details.

If you'd like to take a quick look at an old-style QIIME 1 like table, you can run the following commands:

```auto
qiime feature-table transpose \
    --i-table table.qza \
    --o-transposed-feature-table table-transposed.qza

qiime metadata tabulate \
    --m-input-file table-transposed.qza \
    --m-input-file taxonomy.qza \
    --o-visualization counts-and-taxonomy.qzv

```

Then view the `counts-and-taxonomy.qzv` on QIIME 2 View.

Protip: you can add multiple `--m-imput-files` as long as they share a common ID.

-Cheers!  
-Mike

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