Import and export data from SPSS

Sometimes, we would like to work with data that are stored in SPSS format. It is easy to import data from SPSS using Stata's import spss command.

Let's begin by creating an SPSS file for to use in our example. We first open a Stata system dataset called auto.

. sysuse auto
(1978 automobile data)

Next let's use Stata's export spss command to export our auto dataset to an SPSS file named myauto.

. export spss myauto
file myauto.sav saved

You can verify that the SPSS file was exported successfully by typing ls, and you should see a file named myauto.sav.

. ls

   (output omitted)
   4.5k   2/08/24 16:38  myauto.sav

Now we can import our SPSS data into Stata. Let's first type clear to clear Stata's memory.

. clear

Then we can use import spss to import the data from the SPSS file.

. import spss myauto
(12 vars, 74 obs)

Let's type describe to verify that our data imported successfully.

. describe

Contains data
 Observations:            74                  1978 automobile data
    Variables:            12                


Variable      Storage   Display    Value                    
    name         type    format    label      Variable label 

make            str17   %17s                  Make and model
price           int     %11.0fc               Price         
mpg             byte    %11.0f                Mileage (mpg)
rep78           byte    %11.0f                Repair record 1978
headroom        double  %9.1f                 Headroom (in.)
trunk           byte    %11.0f                Trunk space (cu. ft.)
weight          int     %11.0fc               Weight (lbs.)
length          int     %11.0f                Length (in.)
turn            byte    %11.0f                Turn circle (ft.)
displacement    int     %11.0f                Displacement (cu. in.)
gear_ratio      double  %9.2f                 Gear ratio
foreign         byte    %11.0f     labels0    Car origin

Now we can save our data to a Stata dataset by typing save myauto.

. save myauto

You can watch a demonstration of these commands by clicking on the link to the YouTube video below. You can read more about these commands by clicking on the links to the Stata manual entries below.

See it in action

Watch Import data from SPSS and SAS.