Importing multiple excel files into spss

To check this, click on the Variable View tab see red arrow, above. This will bring up the variable view within SPSS. Preparing Excel Open the Excel spreadsheet from which you wish to import data. You can see in our example that we have 5 columns of data.

Once you have got your worksheet straight, you can open up SPSS. Once you click Data, the Open Data box will appear. In the Worksheet dropdown menu, select the sheet from your Excel workbook that contains your data.

If you have not assigned names to the sheets in your Excel workbook, the labels you see here will usually be Sheet1, Sheet2, Sheet3, etc. You can only import one sheet from your Excel file at a time. If your variable names are in the first row of data, select the Read variable names from the first row of data check box. The options Remove leading spaces from string values and Remove trailing spaces from string values only affect variables that are imported as strings.

The former will remove any whitespace characters that appear at the start of the string, and the latter will remove any whitespace characters at the end of the string. This is optional, but is often convenient, since leading and trailing spaces can appear invisible to the user, but cause SPSS to think that otherwise identical strings are distinct.

It is suggested to keep the default value unless you have a reason for altering it. Click OK when you are finished. If you are using SPSS version 24 or earlier, you will instead see the Opening Excel Data Source window: The meaning of Read variable names from the first row of data checkbox, the Worksheet dropdown, and the Range box are the same as above.

In general, there are two patterns that SPSS recognizes: Delimited data: Each observation is delimited , or separated, by a particular character. ID,Age,Gender A,41,F A,36,M C,27,F Fixed-width data: Rather than using delimiters between observations, the values of the variables are aligned vertically, so that a given variable always begins in a certain column position.

Step 1 of 6 This window provides a preview of the data in your text file. Step 2 of 6 If your data did not match a predefined format you will need to tell SPSS how your data is arranged, so that it understands where one column ends and the next begins.

In the "How are your variables arranged" area, click the radio button that matches your data's format: Delimited: Variable values are delimited or separated in the file by a special character, such as a comma or a tab. Fixed width: Variables are aligned in fixed width columns. If necessary, choose the symbol used to denote decimals. Then click Next. Click Next when you are finished. Step 4 of 6 In the "Which delimiters appear between variables" area, select the check box that reflects the delimiter used in your data.

Notice how that affects the parsing of variable Major : Because SPSS thinks that both spaces and commas were used as delimiters, it thinks that the spaces occurring in the names of the majors delimit observations for subsequent variables, and hence, SPSS interprets individual words as readings for the adjacent variable s here, variables Height , Weight , and Smoking.

Step 5 of 6 This step allows you to specify the format for each variable in the data file. Step 6 of 6 In the final step, you can choose to save the file format that you just defined for the current data file in case you will import data with the same structure and format in the future. The Save Data As window will appear.

Choose the directory where you want the file to be saved. Type a name for your file in the File name field. You may also select other file types for use in other statistical software programs e. If you wish to save only certain variables in your data set, click Variables and select the variables you wish to keep in your saved data file. Click Continue. If you wish to protect your data file with a password, select the Encrypt file with password check box.

When you are finished, click Save. Report a problem. Subjects: Statistical Software. Tags: statistics , tutorials. University Libraries.

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I tried to export data from excel to SPSS, in the process the sheet that was read was the data dictionary. Now I can't see the other sheets and opening the excel workbook, the sheets ate all missing.

I urgently need your help on how to retrieve the lost sheets. Thank you. We can simply copy-paste this into the dialog. Other than that, we don't have to change anything. The first row holds the variable names and we'd like all sheets from all workbooks to be read.

After reading in the data, they can be converted with the syntax below. This default can not be overridden. A workaround may be to move irrelevant workbooks to a different folder. Tell us what you think! Your comment will show up after approval from a moderator. By Gilbert on April 14th, I tried to export data from excel to SPSS, in the process the sheet that was read was the data dictionary. Thank you 1 … 4.

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