Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Would you like to save this file format for future use?
This refers to the
structure of the data file (the first line of data contains these variables
in these particular columns, the second line of data contains these
other variables in these given columns, and so on); it is what is being
referred to in Step 1 when you were asked if the data meet a previously
defined format. The vast majority of relatively inexperienced users
should answer
No
to this question. However, if you expect to collect
exactly the same kind of data in another wave of data collection in
the future, then by answering
Ye s
you will avoid all the formatting
work you just did on the current data set.
Wouldyouliketopastethesyntax?
There is underlying syntax to
everything that you do in SPSS, and many experienced SPSS users
can work comfortably with the syntax or even prefer it to point and
click. If you answer
Ye s
, SPSS will display the syntax in a syntax
window (syntax windows use the file extension
.sps
). New users
should probably answer
No
to this question until they become more
familiar with syntax.
Cache data locally?
This places the data in the working memory
of the computer and could speed up the data processing done by
SPSS. Unless you have an older computer and a large data file, this
is probably unnecessary and you need not check the box.
A.11 OPENING SAVED DATA FILES
Once you have saved a data file, you can retrieve it quite easily. From the
main SPSS menu select
File
➜
Open
➜
Data
and navigate to the file that
you want to open. Click
Open
in the dialog window and the data file will
be placed on your desktop.
A.12 THE MAIN SPSS MENU
Figure A15 shows a portion of an existent SPSS data file. At the top of the
window you will see the heading on the main SPSS menu (
File
,
Edit
,and
so on). You will make use of some of these menus much more frequently
than others. When you click on one of these menu items, you will open a
secondary menu from which you select what you would like to do. Very
briefly, these menu items contain the following:
File
: Contains a variety of functions including
Open
,
Save
,
Save As
,
Print
, and
Exit
.
Edit
:Allowsyouto
cut
,
copy
,
paste
, and so on.
View
: Controls status bars, tool bars, and so on.
Data
: Allows you to deal with the data file; among other things, you
can select options to
sort
(reorder) the cases,
merge
one data file
into another,
restructure
the data file, and
select
asubsetofthe
cases in the data file.
