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Troubleshooting
Problem
SPSS doesn't update the values of my cells automatically when changes are made elsewhere in my data despite having setup a Compute command. Also when importing data from Excel some values derived from formula are not read in. How can I fix this?
Resolving The Problem
SPSS data files (.SAV) contain only data and meta-data that describes the data (format, labels, value lable,s missing values, etc). Excel spreadsheets however can contain non-data entries, such as formulas. SPSS cannot interpret Excel formulas and so any cell in Excel that is derived from a formula will not be read in.
Once the data is in SPSS performing a Compute command will change your data at the moment you execute the command. If you type a formula in Excel the result of the forumla is displayed and appears to be data, but in reality Excel only stores the formula. The effect of this is that if the inputs to the formula change the displayed value changes. There is no equivalent in SPSS as SPSS only stores data, not the formula or Compute command that the data was calculated from.
If you need to import an Excel file that uses many formula as a work around you can copy the entire datasheet to a new sheet using the Paste Special command and selecting to paste Values. This will result in the new datasheet only containing the results of the formula, not the formula themselves which will allow SPSS to read in the entire set of data
Related Information
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Historical Number
79734
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Document Information
Modified date:
16 April 2020
UID
swg21477926
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