Choosing Variable Properties to Copy

You can copy selected variable properties from the source variables to the target variables. Undefined (empty) properties in the source variables do not overwrite defined properties in the target variables.

Value Labels. Value labels are descriptive labels associated with data values. Value labels are often used when numeric data values are used to represent non-numeric categories (for example, codes of 1 and 2 for Male and Female). You can replace or merge value labels in the target variables.

• Replace deletes any defined value labels for the target variable and replaces them with the defined value labels from the source variable.
• Merge merges the defined value labels from the source variable with any existing defined value label for the target variable. If the same value has a defined value label in both the source and target variables, the value label in the target variable is unchanged.

Custom Attributes. User-defined custom variable attributes. See the topic Custom Variable Attributes for more information.

• Replace deletes any custom attributes for the target variable and replaces them with the defined attributes from the source variable.
• Merge merges the defined attributes from the source variable with any existing defined attributes for the target variable.

Missing Values. Missing values are values identified as representing missing data (for example, 98 for Do not know and 99 for Not applicable). Typically, these values also have defined value labels that describe what the missing value codes stand for. Any existing defined missing values for the target variable are deleted and replaced with the defined missing values from the source variable.

Variable Label. Descriptive variable labels can contain spaces and reserved characters not allowed in variable names. If you're copying variable properties from a single source variable to multiple target variables, you might want to think twice before selecting this option.

Measurement Level. The measurement level can be nominal, ordinal, or scale.

Role. Some dialogs support the ability to pre-select variables for analysis based on defined roles. See the topic Roles for more information.

Formats. For numeric variables, this controls numeric type (such as numeric, date, or currency), width (total number of displayed characters, including leading and trailing characters and decimal indicator), and number of decimal places displayed. This option is ignored for string variables.

Alignment. This affects only alignment (left, right, center) in Data View in the Data Editor.

Data Editor Column Width. This affects only column width in Data View in the Data Editor.