Re: Import Codebook

[John Darrington]

Instead of transforming to csv, if you transform your excel file to an
Openoffice file or a Gnumeric file, then you should be able to import it
without loss.

J'

On Sun, Jan 23, 2022 at 12:42:09PM +0000, Marek Ludwig wrote:
     Dear John,
     
     that is correct. We transformed the Excel files into CSV and the labeling 
in form of the codebook gets lost during the process.
     
     
     Regards,
     
     Marek
     
     ________________________________
     Von: jhwhite@techwriteinc.com <jhwhite@techwriteinc.com>
     Gesendet: Freitag, 21. Januar 2022 18:50:24
     An: amead@alanmead.org; Marek Ludwig; pspp-users@gnu.org
     Cc: Katja Behrndt
     Betreff: RE: Import Codebook
     
     If I understand the issue correctly, variable labels are not being 
installed when importing some Excel files into PSPP. Is this correct?
     
     Take care,
     John
     ___________________________
     
     [cid:image001.jpg@01D80EC5.7523B450]
     
     Email: jhwhite@techwriteinc.com
     
     From: Pspp-users <pspp-users-bounces+jhwhite=techwriteinc.com@gnu.org> On 
Behalf Of Alan Mead
     Sent: Thursday, January 20, 2022 9:23 PM
     To: Marek Ludwig <marek.ludwig@fh-potsdam.de>; pspp-users@gnu.org
     Cc: Katja Behrndt <katja.behrndt@fh-potsdam.de>
     Subject: Re: Import Codebook
     
     
     I find applying labels to be very time-consuming, so maybe that's bad news 
for you. Maybe someone else will have a great idea.
     
     
     
     But to make it as quick as possible, I'd recommend that you generate 
syntax and execute that syntax. I think that will be MUCH quicker than 
individually clicking and editing these values using the graphical user 
interface.
     
     
     
     A lot of people are scared of syntax, but it's not so hard. An added 
advantage of doing it this way is that you easily fix an error by fixing the 
syntax and re-running it.
     
     
     
     Also, if you have the information in a spreadsheet, I would try to 
generate the syntax using formulas in the spreadsheet. If column A contained 
the spss variable name (maybe "V1") and column B contained the variable label, 
then into cell C1 I would insert:
     
     
     
     ="variable labels "&A1&" '"&B1&"'."
     
     
     
     (Note that there are single quotes, inside the double quotes, around B1 
because it's a string.)
     
     
     
     If A1 = V1 and B1 = Beschriftung then this would generate:
     
     
     
     variable labels V1 'Beschriftung'.
     
     
     
     And if you paste that into a syntax window, add the line "Execute." and 
run it, it would label this variable. You could paste 200 rows of Column C, add 
"Execute." and create the 200 variable labels very easily.
     
     
     
     The value labels could be done similarly but I'd have to see the 
spreadsheet to devise the correct formula(s)...
     
     
     
     This page describes the syntax:
     
     
http://www.statsmakemecry.com/smmctheblog/using-syntax-to-assign-variable-labels-and-value-labels-in-s.html
     
     
     
     This includes my solution and suggests an alternative (that may not work 
with PSPP):
     
     
https://www.reddit.com/r/spss/comments/mobw0z/import_excel_file_while_maintaining_variable/
     
     
     
     Here are the relevant PSPP manual pages:
     
     https://www.gnu.org/software/pspp/manual/html_node/VALUE-LABELS.html
     
     https://www.gnu.org/software/pspp/manual/html_node/VARIABLE-LABELS.html
     
     https://www.gnu.org/software/pspp/manual/html_node/MISSING-VALUES.html
     
     
     
     
     
     -Alan
     
     
     
     
     On 1/19/2022 9:01 AM, Marek Ludwig wrote:
     Dear All,
     we have read in a CSV dataset that we had generated from an Excel file. 
Unfortunately, the codebook got lost in the process, so that the columns for 
labels("Beschriftung"), value labels ("Wertelabels") and missing values 
("Fehlende Werte") are empty. Since our dataset has over 200 variables, filling 
them in manually would be very time consuming. Is there an efficient, faster 
solution to read in the codebook or fill in these columns?
     I would be very grateful for a hint!
     Thanks a lot,
     Marek
     
     
     --
     
     
     
     Alan D. Mead, Ph.D.
     
     President, Talent Algorithms Inc.
     
     
     
     science + technology = better workers
     
     
     
     https://talalg.com
     
     
     
     
     
     Hofstadter's Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you
     
     take into account Hofstadter's Law.