Date:         Tue, 28 Jan 1997 11:21:54 -0600
Reply-To:     jon@spss.com
Sender:       "SPSSX(r) Discussion" <SPSSX-L@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU>
From:         Jonathan Fry <jon@SPSS.COM>
Organization: SPSS Inc.
Subject:      Re: SPSS and defining varaibles
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

Mike Lane wrote:
>
> I am not what you would call a power user of SPSS.  My preliminary
> reading of this group shows that there are alot of people doing things
> in SPSS far beyond what I'm ready for.  For now I'm content to run
> descriptives and a few ANOVAs.
>
> The problem I'm having is one of data entry.  I recently got some
> rather voluminous ascii data files from the computer center where I
> work and they have presented me with a problem.  All the files are of
> the same format and layout and all need the same column definitions to
> be brought into SPSS.  I figured out how to replicate that part of the
> process using the paste command in the ascii import screen.
>
> What I cannot figure out is how to run or copy the same variable
> labels for each file without retyping them for each column of data for
> each file.  It seems there MUST be a way to do this as it is so
> incredibly tedious to do it manually.
>
> I use version 7.0 on a Win95 machine.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Mike Lane
> Research Associate, NYIT
 
Mike,
 
If you want to keep the files separate, your best bet is Apply Data
Dictionary in the File menu.  That applies dictionary information
(labels and missing value specifications) from an external file to your
current active file.  It matches variables by name.
 
If you want to combine the files into a single SPSS data set, make an
SPSS data set out of each of them.  Then, if one has the value labels,
open that one and start a series of Data->MergeFiles->Add Cases
operations. Or postpone labeling until after you've combined the files.
--
--------------------
Jonathan Fry
SPSS Inc.
jon@spss.com