SPSS offers several ways to change a variable’s type. This tutorial will walk you through some examples. SPSS Variable Type – Why Change it in the First Place? What you can do with a variable may depend on its type and – to a lesser extent – on its format. For example, you can extract substrings from string variables but not from numeric variables. […]
The right way for changing variable names in SPSS is using RENAME VARIABLES. Changing variable names manually in variable view is a bad idea because you can’t keep track of what you did. This tutorial shows a better alternative. Changing Variable Names in SPSS Changing variable names with syntax is straightforward with the RENAME VARIABLES command. The main thing to keep in mind is […]
Changing a variable’s width is rarely necessary. Nevertheless, it’s good to know how when it’s needed and how it’s done. Changing Variable Width in SPSS For string variables, width refers to how many characters a value can hold. An exception are multibyte characters as explained in SPSS Unicode Mode. Somewhat confusingly, “width” is not the width of a variable’s column […]
A great way to start working from syntax is using “Paste” instead of “Ok”. However, there’s no “Paste” option for modifying most variable properties. This tutorial shows how handle that properly. Changing Variable Properties Note that all variable properties (such as variable labels and value labels) are part of the SPSS dictionary. It is strongly recommended you use syntax in […]
Properties of variables and values such as names, formats and labels are collectively referred to as the dictionary in SPSS. Most of the dictionary is seen under variable view but -trust me on this one- you don’t want to edit anything here manually or by copy-pasting.Instead, manage your dictionary by syntax -it’s way faster, easier and safer. The […]
