IBM SPSS Essentials, 2nd Edition

5Accessing Your Data

Chapter Menu

• Chapter Learning Objectives
• Accessing Your Data Files
• Importing data from Excel
• Summary

Chapter Learning Objectives

1. Accessing data files through syntax
   1. Controlling content in data files
2. Importing data from Excel

Accessing Your Data Files

Figure 5.1 Open and save icons.

In Windows‐based programs, the Open (file) and Save (file) icons are generally located adjacent to each other in the top left‐hand corner of a window (see Figure 5.1 for the SPSS example of this). Have you ever mistakenly clicked on the “Save” button instead of “Open”, accidently saving changes you did not intend to? This “unintentional saving” can actually have massive real‐world implications when it happens to data files, because with any data analysis it is always imperative to maintain the integrity of original data (e.g. ensure that you can always revisit the raw, unaltered data at some later point in time).

The only instances in which you would want to intentionally “save” raw data files are when you are (1) entering additional data or (2) making corrections to typos (e.g. data that were initially entered incorrectly). Other than these two circumstances, you should never “save over” your original raw data file – which is why the “open”/“save” icon locations ...