I am working on this dataset with a number of other people, all of whom use
SPSS, which has a much higher limit. I much prefer Stata, so I always
convert the SPSS dataset to Stata format to work on it. However, the
80-character variable label limit means that when I convert back to SPSS
format and send the altered dataset back to my colleagues, the variable
labels are all truncated at 80 characters...I could
work around this by re-labeling after I convert back to SPSS format, but
with a couple of hundred variables, this is a pain in the neck.
In Stat/Transfer Version Seven, you can work around this problem by using
the new options to produce input programs plus ASCII data. First, produce
an SPSS program from your .sav file. Then move your data to a Stata .dta
file and do whatever transformations you want. When you are ready to go
back to SPSS, produce an SPSS program + data file from your Stata
dataset. Then clip the "VARIABLE LABELS" section from the first program
(the one dumped from SPSS) and paste it into the one dumped from
Stata. Not quite automatic, but better than doing it by hand.
