Changing text into numbers

Ibukundada

New Member
Joined
Feb 6, 2025
Messages
2
Office Version
  1. 365
Platform
  1. MacOS
Hello!

I am currently doing my dissertation and I am trying to get my data from Excel into SPSS. However I have quite a lot of quantitative data that I need to turn into numbers to do this. I’m just wondering how I turn a mass amount of qualitative data in Excel into numbers so that I can put it into SPSS? For example:

I did a survey where people had to choose answers such as ‘I agree’ or ‘Most of the time’, things of this nature. I want to turn every answer of ‘I agree’ or ‘Most of the time’ into numbers like 1 and 2 respectively. I hope this makes sense - thank you for any responses!
 

Excel Facts

Add Bullets to Range
Select range. Press Ctrl+1. On Number tab, choose Custom. Type Alt+7 then space then @ sign (using 7 on numeric keypad)
make a new column and use an IF or NESTED IF
=IF( cell with comment = "1 Agree",1,IF(cell with comment = "Most of the time",2,IF(cell with comment = "??????" , 3 ,"")))
or you

OR
=SWITCH(A1,"i Agree",1,"most of the time",3) etc
 
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Thank you so much for the response! I’m not entirely sure what you mean by making a new column and turning it into an IF - does this column have to be at the end or the beginning of my data as well? Thank you for any further clarification!
 
Upvote 0
you will need a column to put the numbers into and can be anywhere in the sheet
 
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Welcome to the MrExcel board!

We have no idea about the layout of your data or of the required outcome. So if you still need more help, perhaps you could give us some small dummy sample data with the expected results manually entered, by using XL2BB (which is what I have used for my example below). That way we can see what you have, where it is and what results you are aiming for and where they are. We can also easily copy from that to test with your sample data.
(If you have trouble with XL2BB, review the "XL2BB Icons greyed out" link in the 'Known XL2BB issues' section near the top of the XL2BB Instructions page linked above.)

Could it be something like this that you are after with a points lookup table at the right and formulas to extract the relevant numbers?

Ibukundada.xlsm
ABCDEFGHIJKL
1NameQ1Q2Q3Q1Q2Q3PointsQ1Q2Q3
2TomNeverHighly LikelyHot2555I agreeHighly LikelyHot
3AnnI agreeNot LikelyFreezing5213Most of the timeModerately LikelyWarm
4JenModerately LikelyCold 322NeverNot LikelyCold
5RonMost of the timeN/AWarm3131N/AFreezing
Sheet1
Cell Formulas
RangeFormula
E2:G5E2=IFNA(INDEX($I$2:$I$5,MATCH(B2,J$2:J$5,0)),"")
 
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