Any tips or FAQs for using SPSS on Macs?

[Bruce Weaver]

Hello all.  I am not a Mac user, but a good number of my students are.  I
wonder, therefore, if anyone can direct me to any short documents or
web-pages with FAQs or tips & tricks for users of SPSS on Macs.  

As an example of what I have in mind, when one uses FILE HANDLE to point to
a folder on a Windows machine, the command looks something like this:

FILE HANDLE MyFolder /NAME="C:\Folder\Subfolder".

But Windows is forgiving, and internally converts / to \ if one does this
instead:

FILE HANDLE MyFolder /NAME="C:/Folder/Subfolder".

The Mac OS, on the other hand, wants /, and does not forgive you if you use
\ instead.  And apparently, it does not want the name of the drive included
either (i.e., the equivalent of C:).  I.e., the Mac OS wants:

FILE HANDLE MyFolder /NAME="/Folder/Subfolder".

My search on <spss tips for mac users> is not turning up the kind of
resources that deal with Mac-related issues specifically.  Hence my request
for pointers.  

Cheers,
Bruce  




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Bruce Weaver
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[Jon Peck]

I'm not a Mac user, but Statistics is supposed to support either kind of slash on any platform.  It Statistics code that maps to the native file system.  And, since Macs don't use drive letters, file system references would just be the natural Mac specifications.

There is one important thing to know about the Mac file open/save  in Statistics.  As of V27, the Mac version uses the native Mac dialogs by default in place of the custom SPSS versions previously used.  However, the native dialogs, natch, don't support SPSS-specific features such as variable selection for saving data, file encoding choices, and encryption.  For those, which still of course are available through syntax, you can go to Edit > Options and choose to use the old dialog versions that do provide these features.

On Fri, Sep 25, 2020 at 2:21 PM Bruce Weaver <[hidden email]> wrote:

Hello all.  I am not a Mac user, but a good number of my students are.  I
wonder, therefore, if anyone can direct me to any short documents or
web-pages with FAQs or tips & tricks for users of SPSS on Macs. 

As an example of what I have in mind, when one uses FILE HANDLE to point to
a folder on a Windows machine, the command looks something like this:

FILE HANDLE MyFolder /NAME="C:\Folder\Subfolder".

But Windows is forgiving, and internally converts / to \ if one does this
instead:

FILE HANDLE MyFolder /NAME="C:/Folder/Subfolder".

The Mac OS, on the other hand, wants /, and does not forgive you if you use
\ instead.  And apparently, it does not want the name of the drive included
either (i.e., the equivalent of C:).  I.e., the Mac OS wants:

FILE HANDLE MyFolder /NAME="/Folder/Subfolder".

My search on <spss tips for mac users> is not turning up the kind of
resources that deal with Mac-related issues specifically.  Hence my request
for pointers. 

Cheers,
Bruce 




-----
--
Bruce Weaver
[hidden email]
http://sites.google.com/a/lakeheadu.ca/bweaver/

"When all else fails, RTFM."

NOTE: My Hotmail account is not monitored regularly.
To send me an e-mail, please use the address shown above.

--
Sent from: http://spssx-discussion.1045642.n5.nabble.com/

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[hidden email] (not to SPSSX-L), with no body text except the
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For a list of commands to manage subscriptions, send the command
INFO REFCARD

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===================== To manage your subscription to SPSSX-L, send a message to [hidden email] (not to SPSSX-L), with no body text except the command. To leave the list, send the command SIGNOFF SPSSX-L For a list of commands to manage subscriptions, send the command INFO REFCARD