Simple Tables for Categorical Variables
Most tables you want to create will probably include at least one categorical variable. A categorical variable is one with a limited number of distinct values or categories (for example, gender or religion). Categorical variables can be either nominal or ordinal.
- Nominal. A variable can be treated as nominal when its values represent categories with no intrinsic ranking (for example, the department of the company in which an employee works). Examples of nominal variables include region, postal code, and religious affiliation.
- Ordinal. A variable can be treated as ordinal when its values represent categories with some intrinsic ranking (for example, levels of service satisfaction from highly dissatisfied to highly satisfied). Examples of ordinal variables include attitude scores representing degree of satisfaction or confidence and preference rating scores.
An icon next to each variable in the variable list identifies the variable type.
| Numeric | String | Date | Time | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scale (Continuous) |  |
n/a |  |
 |
| Ordinal |  |
 |
 |
 |
| Nominal |  |
 |
 |
 |
Custom Tables is optimized for use with categorical variables that have defined value labels. See the topic Building Tables for more information.
Sample Data File
The examples in this section use the data file survey_sample.sav. See the topic Sample Files for more information.
All examples provided here display variable labels in dialog boxes, sorted in alphabetical order. Variable list display properties are set on the General tab in the Options dialog box (Edit menu, Options).