When I import my CSV file, I lose the data for a few variables. This happens with the text data where I only have data for a few of the cases. I have a dataset with over 300 cases and I think this only happens with the variables for which I have data for less then 5% of the cases.

The problem is that the text variables are converted into Numeric variables after importing it into SPSS. Thereby, all the data is lost for this variable.

The dataset I work with has 1200 variables, so it is a lot of work to check or change all variables one by one.

Does anyone know how I can prevent this?

Thank you!

I already tried changing the variable into text in the CSV file and I tried to change type of the variable from numeric into string in the SPSS file, but both didn't work.

When importing the CSV file there is a option in the Text Wizard to specify the data format for each variable. This seems to work but is a lot of work for 1200 variables.

In the Text Wizard, go to the "Advanced" section. Leave the formats as AUTO and Paste the syntax. Then use the Edit > Replace function to change AUTO to, say, F8.2 for all the variables (hoping AUTO doesn't match part of a name. The exact F format choice doesn't matter. Then run that syntax.

Meant to add, this assumes that variables names appear at the start of the file.

Thank you very much! Unfortunately not all my variables are numeric or string so I couldn't use the 'Replace' function. I didn't think of the option to paste and edit the format of the variables in the syntax. This helped me a lot because I can now look for the variables easily and adjust the format when necessary. Thanks again!