Text Wizard: Step 5

This step controls the variable name and the data format that is used to read each variable. You can also specify variables to exclude.

Variable name

You can overwrite the default variable names with your own variable names. If you read variable names from the data file, names that do not conform to variable naming rules are automatically modified. Select a variable in the preview window and then enter a variable name.

Data format

Select a variable in the preview window and then select a format from the list.

• Automatic determines the data format based on an evaluation of all the data values.
• To exclude a variable, select Do Not Import.

Percentage of values that determine Automatic data format

For automatic format, the data format for each variable is determined by the percentage of values that conform to the same format.

• The value must be greater than 50.
• The denominator used to determine the percentage is the number of non-blank values for each variable.
• If no consistent format is used by the specified percentage of values, the variable is assigned the string data type.
• For variables that are assigned a numeric format (including date and time formats) based on the percentage value, values that do not conform to that format are assigned the system-missing value.