SPSS Statistics for Dummies, 3rd Edition

Chapter 17

Changing Settings

In This Chapter

Understanding your configuration options

Modifying the default settings

Over time, you’ll find that you want to configure your system to work in ways that are different from the defaults. SPSS has lots of options that you can set to do just that. If you’re new to this and you’ve just started looking at the software, you probably don’t want to change any options just yet, but you need some idea of the possibilities it offers. Later, when you absolutely, positively have to make some sort of change, you’ll know where to go to do it.

With the Data Editor window on the screen (see Figure 17-1), choose Edit  ⇒  Options to display the Options window. You can set any and all possible options in this window. At the top of the window are some tabs; each tab contains a different collection of options. In this chapter, we walk you through changing these options.

Figure 17-1: The Data Editor window.

Sometimes a change in configuration has an immediate effect, and sometimes it doesn’t. For example, if you change the way values are labeled in a report ...