SPSS can read/import many data file formats. This document gives an overview and should help you
to handle many common situations. Please read the remarks below for more complex situations that require that
you consult the SPSS documentation.
Generally speaking importing/reading data into SPSS means creating a standard SPSS file (SAV file) from other sources.
- SPSS can access many proprietary files like SAS files, Stata files, Excel files and
others.
- As SPSS exists on many computing platforms, some SPSS files created by other Operating Systems
might not be compatible with your system (this was a much more common problem in the past when mainframe computers
were still very common). To make sure that SPSS files from any system can be read on any other system, SPSS created
a the SPSS portable file format, that can be accessed with all SPSS versions. The usual file extension is POR, e.g.
"mydata.por". These files can be read using the normal
dialog and selecting the SPSS portable file type.
- SPSS can read raw data (ascii data, text data) in many forms.
- SPSS can access data bases (Oracle, Ingres etc) using standard query
languages. If you need to do this please consult the SPSS documentation. If you do not
know what a "Query Language" is, you will have to learn about this as well.