Trouble copying from Word to *.sps

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Trouble copying from Word to *.sps

John F Hall

I’m trying to copy a list of variables from a Word *.docx file to SPSS *.sps.  It works when I copy from Word to this email, and from the email to SPSS, but not from Word.  Any ideas?

 

variable level

WtFactor OldWt 

RMany RSuper  SEmpNum

WkJbHrsI  EJbHrsX

PenXpct1 Tea2  WWWHrsWk

OwnCh  CarNum  AirTrvl

shrtjrn  Numch5p

BaseF01 to  ScenF09

idlnchld rcare

SHOMEWRK  scare

RetirAg2

HipOpA to Total

AfDied  IqDied

LATlenb  ApartLen

HTcm WTkg

StTIM  NumCh

GPAptUH   GPAptUC

EmploydT  Duration

NCh015

HhBetOff  WhatIncH

Dis100   ITNC

NOFHH 

JOBPAY2 to SHDPAY11

TVHrsSC

                        (scale).

 

They aren’t my variable names: they are in the British Social Attitudes files which use mnemonics based on early SPSS 8-character limits.  Gets hairy with 2500 odd names and you don’t know where they are in the file!

 

John F Hall (Mr)

[Retired academic survey researcher]

 

Email:   [hidden email] 

Website: www.surveyresearch.weebly.com

SPSS start page:  www.surveyresearch.weebly.com/1-survey-analysis-workshop

 

 

 

===================== 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
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Re: Trouble copying from Word to *.sps

Rick Oliver-3
How, specifically, does it not work? Nothing gets pasted?


Rick Oliver
Senior Information Developer
IBM Business Analytics (SPSS)
E-mail: [hidden email]




From:        John F Hall <[hidden email]>
To:        [hidden email]
Date:        04/05/2016 11:50 AM
Subject:        Trouble copying from Word to *.sps
Sent by:        "SPSSX(r) Discussion" <[hidden email]>




I’m trying to copy a list of variables from a Word *.docx file to SPSS *.sps.  It works when I copy from Word to this email, and from the email to SPSS, but not from Word.  Any ideas?

 

variable level

WtFactorOldWt  

RMany RSuper  SEmpNum

WkJbHrsI EJbHrsX

PenXpct1 Tea2  WWWHrsWk

OwnCh  CarNum  AirTrvl

shrtjrn  Numch5p

BaseF01 to  ScenF09

idlnchldrcare

SHOMEWRK  scare

RetirAg2

HipOpA to Total

AfDied  IqDied

LATlenb  ApartLen

HTcm WTkg

StTIM  NumCh

GPAptUH   GPAptUC

EmploydT Duration

NCh015

HhBetOff WhatIncH

Dis100   ITNC

NOFHH  

JOBPAY2 to SHDPAY11

TVHrsSC

                        (scale).

 

They aren’t my variable names: they are in the British Social Attitudes files which use mnemonics based on early SPSS 8-character limits.  Gets hairy with 2500 odd names and you don’t know where they are in the file!

 

John F Hall (Mr)

[Retired academic survey researcher]

 

Email:   johnfhall@... 

Website: www.surveyresearch.weebly.com

SPSS start page:  www.surveyresearch.weebly.com/1-survey-analysis-workshop

 

 

 

===================== To manage your subscription to SPSSX-L, send a message to LISTSERV@...(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


===================== 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

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Re: Trouble copying from Word to *.sps

Rich Ulrich
In reply to this post by John F Hall
Ideas about what?  - You have a functioning method for erasing
the invisible formatting codes in the Word document... which is
a step that cannot be ignored, and can't be shortened by much.

Using email may seem to work now, but I always did my strip-code copying
to Notepad because Notepad will be reliable for doing it.  Your email
program probably has default settings that can be changed, and you
don't want surprises if you (or some upgrade) happens to change the
defaults.  Or if you change email programs without giving a thought to this
functioning.

 - For keeping track of variables:  Obviously, you want to create a numbered
list (in some fashion) of the variables.  Searching with FIND can get you to
any particular name.

Scale AA (50 vars, v2-v51)
WtFactor OldWt RMany RSuper SEmpNum ...

If you feel free enough to touch the names, you could (for example) stick
AA_  at the start of each of the names from Scale AA.  This has an added
benefit of helping to insure uniqueness that defends against mis-spelling
a name and picking up a variable from the wrong scale.

 - The only time that I had thousands of variables in one dataset, they came
with mnemonic names like P1_PS01 to P4_PS78.  That left me relying on
Variable Labels in printouts; but it certainly made it easier to locate the
variables and specify them for analyses.

--
Rich Ulrich


Date: Tue, 5 Apr 2016 18:50:00 +0200
From: [hidden email]
Subject: Trouble copying from Word to *.sps
To: [hidden email]

I’m trying to copy a list of variables from a Word *.docx file to SPSS *.sps.  It works when I copy from Word to this email, and from the email to SPSS, but not from Word.  Any ideas?

 

variable level

WtFactor OldWt 

RMany RSuper  SEmpNum

WkJbHrsI  EJbHrsX

PenXpct1 Tea2  WWWHrsWk

OwnCh  CarNum  AirTrvl

shrtjrn  Numch5p

BaseF01 to  ScenF09

idlnchld rcare

SHOMEWRK  scare

RetirAg2

HipOpA to Total

AfDied  IqDied

LATlenb  ApartLen

HTcm WTkg

StTIM  NumCh

GPAptUH   GPAptUC

EmploydT  Duration

NCh015

HhBetOff  WhatIncH

Dis100   ITNC

NOFHH 

JOBPAY2 to SHDPAY11

TVHrsSC

                        (scale).

 

They aren’t my variable names: they are in the British Social Attitudes files which use mnemonics based on early SPSS 8-character limits.  Gets hairy with 2500 odd names and you don’t know where they are in the file!

 

John F Hall (Mr)

[Retired academic survey researcher]

 

Email:   [hidden email] 

Website: www.surveyresearch.weebly.com

SPSS start page:  www.surveyresearch.weebly.com/1-survey-analysis-workshop

 

 

 

===================== 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
===================== 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
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Re: Trouble copying from Word to *.sps

Maguin, Eugene

To add to Rich’s suggestion of Notepad, I have saved such word files as type=plain text. Gene Maguin

 

From: SPSSX(r) Discussion [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Rich Ulrich
Sent: Tuesday, April 05, 2016 4:09 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: Trouble copying from Word to *.sps

 

Ideas about what?  - You have a functioning method for erasing
the invisible formatting codes in the Word document... which is
a step that cannot be ignored, and can't be shortened by much.

Using email may seem to work now, but I always did my strip-code copying
to Notepad because Notepad will be reliable for doing it.  Your email
program probably has default settings that can be changed, and you
don't want surprises if you (or some upgrade) happens to change the
defaults.  Or if you change email programs without giving a thought to this
functioning.

 - For keeping track of variables:  Obviously, you want to create a numbered
list (in some fashion) of the variables.  Searching with FIND can get you to
any particular name.

Scale AA (50 vars, v2-v51)
WtFactor OldWt RMany RSuper SEmpNum ...

If you feel free enough to touch the names, you could (for example) stick
AA_  at the start of each of the names from Scale AA.  This has an added
benefit of helping to insure uniqueness that defends against mis-spelling
a name and picking up a variable from the wrong scale.

 - The only time that I had thousands of variables in one dataset, they came
with mnemonic names like P1_PS01 to P4_PS78.  That left me relying on
Variable Labels in printouts; but it certainly made it easier to locate the
variables and specify them for analyses.

--
Rich Ulrich


Date: Tue, 5 Apr 2016 18:50:00 +0200
From: [hidden email]
Subject: Trouble copying from Word to *.sps
To: [hidden email]

I’m trying to copy a list of variables from a Word *.docx file to SPSS *.sps.  It works when I copy from Word to this email, and from the email to SPSS, but not from Word.  Any ideas?

 

variable level

WtFactor OldWt 

RMany RSuper  SEmpNum

WkJbHrsI  EJbHrsX

PenXpct1 Tea2  WWWHrsWk

OwnCh  CarNum  AirTrvl

shrtjrn  Numch5p

BaseF01 to  ScenF09

idlnchld rcare

SHOMEWRK  scare

RetirAg2

HipOpA to Total

AfDied  IqDied

LATlenb  ApartLen

HTcm WTkg

StTIM  NumCh

GPAptUH   GPAptUC

EmploydT  Duration

NCh015

HhBetOff  WhatIncH

Dis100   ITNC

NOFHH 

JOBPAY2 to SHDPAY11

TVHrsSC

                        (scale).

 

They aren’t my variable names: they are in the British Social Attitudes files which use mnemonics based on early SPSS 8-character limits.  Gets hairy with 2500 odd names and you don’t know where they are in the file!

 

John F Hall (Mr)

[Retired academic survey researcher]

 

Email:   [hidden email] 

Website: www.surveyresearch.weebly.com

SPSS start page:  www.surveyresearch.weebly.com/1-survey-analysis-workshop

 

 

 

===================== 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

===================== 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

===================== 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
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Re: Trouble copying from Word to *.sps

Bruce Weaver
Administrator
In reply to this post by Rich Ulrich
John, I also do what Rich called "strip-code copying" by pasting into a text editor as an intermediate step.  (I use EditPad Lite instead of Notepad--it allows multiple tabs.)

It may also make your life easier if you do the following in Word before copying:

1. Set the spacing to 1.0; and
2. Remove all spaces before or after paragraphs.

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Adjust-the-line-spacing-between-text-or-paragraphs-76647c60-de75-4a2c-95eb-aa9369530ff3

HTH.


Rich Ulrich wrote
Ideas about what?  - You have a functioning method for erasing
the invisible formatting codes in the Word document... which is
a step that cannot be ignored, and can't be shortened by much.

Using email may seem to work now, but I always did my strip-code copying
to Notepad because Notepad will be reliable for doing it.  Your email
program probably has default settings that can be changed, and you
don't want surprises if you (or some upgrade) happens to change the
defaults.  Or if you change email programs without giving a thought to this
functioning.

 - For keeping track of variables:  Obviously, you want to create a numbered
list (in some fashion) of the variables.  Searching with FIND can get you to
any particular name.

Scale AA (50 vars, v2-v51)
WtFactor OldWt RMany RSuper SEmpNum ...

If you feel free enough to touch the names, you could (for example) stick
AA_  at the start of each of the names from Scale AA.  This has an added
benefit of helping to insure uniqueness that defends against mis-spelling
a name and picking up a variable from the wrong scale.

 - The only time that I had thousands of variables in one dataset, they came
with mnemonic names like P1_PS01 to P4_PS78.  That left me relying on
Variable Labels in printouts; but it certainly made it easier to locate the
variables and specify them for analyses.

--
Rich Ulrich

Date: Tue, 5 Apr 2016 18:50:00 +0200
From: [hidden email]
Subject: Trouble copying from Word to *.sps
To: [hidden email]

I’m trying to copy a list of variables from a Word *.docx file to SPSS *.sps.  It works when I copy from Word to this email, and from the email to SPSS, but not from Word.  Any ideas? variable levelWtFactor OldWt  RMany RSuper  SEmpNum WkJbHrsI  EJbHrsXPenXpct1 Tea2  WWWHrsWkOwnCh  CarNum  AirTrvlshrtjrn  Numch5p BaseF01 to  ScenF09 idlnchld rcare SHOMEWRK  scareRetirAg2 HipOpA to TotalAfDied  IqDiedLATlenb  ApartLenHTcm WTkgStTIM  NumChGPAptUH   GPAptUCEmploydT  DurationNCh015 HhBetOff  WhatIncHDis100   ITNCNOFHH  JOBPAY2 to SHDPAY11 TVHrsSC                        (scale). They aren’t my variable names: they are in the British Social Attitudes files which use mnemonics based on early SPSS 8-character limits.  Gets hairy with 2500 odd names and you don’t know where they are in the file! John F Hall (Mr)[Retired academic survey researcher] Email:   [hidden email]  Website: www.surveyresearch.weebly.com SPSS start page:  www.surveyresearch.weebly.com/1-survey-analysis-workshop  
=====================
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    
=====================
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
--
Bruce Weaver
bweaver@lakeheadu.ca
http://sites.google.com/a/lakeheadu.ca/bweaver/

"When all else fails, RTFM."

PLEASE NOTE THE FOLLOWING: 
1. My Hotmail account is not monitored regularly. To send me an e-mail, please use the address shown above.
2. The SPSSX Discussion forum on Nabble is no longer linked to the SPSSX-L listserv administered by UGA (https://listserv.uga.edu/).
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Re: Trouble copying from Word to *.sps

John F Hall
In reply to this post by John F Hall

Bruce, Gene, Rich, Victor

 

Thanks for all the suggestions about plain text etc.

 

What was happening was that every time I did CTRL+V with the text from Word the line:

/min

. . was added to the syntax editor from a series of earlier CTRL+C /CTRL+V repeat copies of

/sta min mea.

desc var          ~ ~ ~

. . between different sets of variables sorted by problem type.  The text in Word was single-spaced, but in two columns: I reformatted it to single column, but it made no difference.  I copied it to Notepad, then to Excel, and tried from there: still no difference.  Finally I tried email and Bingo!  I'd still like to know what was actually happening inside my machine, particularly if there was some kind of cache in SPSS.

 

On playing with variable names, I am working with key lists of variables into which I have inserted the row numbers of the variable names (all of which are copied direct from the Names column of the *.sav file: laborious when the measurement levels are different every two lines, but effective when whole blocks are of the same type).

 

743 [DRIVE] 747 [BikeRid]

796 [EngLvUK] 799 [ScotPas2]

806 [LevTax2A] to 811 [PenScUK] 

847 [MigAppl] to 849 [MigRight]

946 [RPrivEd] to 948 [ChPrivEd]

951 [S2PartFl]

 

This way I can keep track.  Within variable level Nominal, I make a distinction between binary (Yes/No or forced choice) and dichotomous (multiple choice lists) and partially ordered (which, with a simple recode,  could be made ordinal).  

 

Working with earlier versions of single BSA surveys, it was possible to use the question numbers in navigation, after Jon Peck supplied a nifty bit of Python code to move them from the end of the variable labels:

Some people say there is very little real poverty in Britain today. Which comes closest to your view  :Q293

Over the last ten years poverty in Britain has been increasing, decreasing or staying at about the same level? :Q294

. . to the beginning). :

Q.293:  Some people say there is very little real poverty in Britain today. Which comes closest to your view 

Q.294: Over the last ten years poverty in Britain has been increasing, decreasing or staying at about the same level?

 

This made it easier (with a questionnaire to hand, marked up with data locations for 80-column records) to find stuff by scrolling down the Labels column and, in the dialog boxes, using labels, not names.  To make life difficult for secondary analysis and teaching, the BSA now uses CAPI and the questionnaires are only available in BLAISE or similar format.  The variable labels in the latest files have not only dispensed with question numbers altogether, but use the text of the actual question.  This makes for inordinately long labels, many with the most useful information at the end:

 

Name        Label

HltTar1   Generally health targets should be set by government, Or, local health providers should set their own targets

 

. . often with long chunks of text repeated, eg in multiple checklist items.

 

Name        Label

ChCoIntrNHS5yrI1  And who do you think is primarily responsible for this improvement? : Government policies

NHS5yrI2  And who do you think is primarily responsible for this improvement? : How services are regulated

NHS5yrI3  And who do you think is primarily responsible for this improvement? : Individual providers

NHS5yrI4  And who do you think is primarily responsible for this improvement? : NHS clinical staff

 

. . or value labels that seem to have crept in from BLAISE CAPI:

 

Name                            Values

MiIntro                         1 Press 1 and <Enter> to continue

ChCoIntr                      1 Press 1 and <Enter> to continue

 

On strip-code copying:

Many years ago, using EDT on a Vax cluster, it was possible to strip out whole columns of text and transfer them elsewhere.  Nowadays it’s more complicated, but would probably work with Excel.

 

Why do I bother doing this? 

Many of the SPSS tutorials on my site use data from the 1970s and 1980s, most recently British Social Attitudes 1989.  I now wish to replicate examples and exercises use data from more recent waves.  As a (retired) teacher I dread to think how newbies would cope with the files as distributed, or how, without several weeks of preparation, I could even begin to use them in a 13-week semester of one hour class-room teaching and a two-hour lab session each week.  My working file is far too complex, large and cumbersome (2588 variables, 19,399 cases) to be used for teaching and needs a quite a bit of tidying up.   I aim to produce a “mother” file from which teachers, researchers and students can extract data of interest  to them and proceed direct to analysis without further hassle.   This could take some time.

 

The final version will be lodged with Natcen (http://www.natcen.ac.uk/ ) who own the data, and copied to UKDS (https://www.ukdataservice.ac.uk/ ) who will hopefully make it available to the research and teaching world.   However, to access the actual data, users will first need to be registered with UKDS.

 

John F Hall (Mr)

[Retired academic survey researcher]

 

Email:   [hidden email] 

Website: www.surveyresearch.weebly.com

SPSS start page:  www.surveyresearch.weebly.com/1-survey-analysis-workshop

 

 

 

 

-----Original Message-----

From: SPSSX(r) Discussion [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Bruce Weaver

Sent: 05 April 2016 22:25

To: [hidden email]

Subject: Re: Trouble copying from Word to *.sps

 

John, I also do what Rich called "strip-code copying" by pasting into a text editor as an intermediate step.  (I use EditPad Lite instead of Notepad--it allows multiple tabs.)

 

It may also make your life easier if you do the following in Word before

copying:

 

1. Set the spacing to 1.0; and

2. Remove all spaces before or after paragraphs.

 

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Adjust-the-line-spacing-between-text-or-paragraphs-76647c60-de75-4a2c-95eb-aa9369530ff3

 

HTH.

 

 

 

Rich Ulrich wrote

> Ideas about what?  - You have a functioning method for erasing the

> invisible formatting codes in the Word document... which is a step

> that cannot be ignored, and can't be shortened by much.

>

> Using email may seem to work now, but I always did my strip-code

> copying to Notepad because Notepad will be reliable for doing it. 

> Your email program probably has default settings that can be changed,

> and you don't want surprises if you (or some upgrade) happens to

> change the defaults.  Or if you change email programs without giving a

> thought to this functioning.

>

>  - For keeping track of variables:  Obviously, you want to create a

> numbered list (in some fashion) of the variables.  Searching with FIND

> can get you to any particular name.

>

> Scale AA (50 vars, v2-v51)

> WtFactor OldWt RMany RSuper SEmpNum ...

>

> If you feel free enough to touch the names, you could (for example)

> stick AA_  at the start of each of the names from Scale AA.  This has

> an added benefit of helping to insure uniqueness that defends against

> mis-spelling a name and picking up a variable from the wrong scale.

>

>  - The only time that I had thousands of variables in one dataset,

> they came with mnemonic names like P1_PS01 to P4_PS78.  That left me

> relying on Variable Labels in printouts; but it certainly made it

> easier to locate the variables and specify them for analyses.

>

> --

> Rich Ulrich

>

> Date: Tue, 5 Apr 2016 18:50:00 +0200

> From:

 

> johnfhall@

 

> Subject: Trouble copying from Word to *.sps

> To:

 

> SPSSX-L@.UGA

 

>

> I’m trying to copy a list of variables from a Word *.docx file to SPSS

> *.sps.  It works when I copy from Word to this email, and from the

> email to SPSS, but not from Word.  Any ideas? variable levelWtFactor

> OldWt RMany RSuper  SEmpNum WkJbHrsI  EJbHrsXPenXpct1 Tea2 

> WWWHrsWkOwnCh CarNum  AirTrvlshrtjrn  Numch5p BaseF01 to  ScenF09

> idlnchld rcare SHOMEWRK  scareRetirAg2 HipOpA to TotalAfDied  IqDiedLATlenb  ApartLenHTcm

> WTkgStTIM  NumChGPAptUH   GPAptUCEmploydT  DurationNCh015 HhBetOff

> WhatIncHDis100   ITNCNOFHH  JOBPAY2 to SHDPAY11 TVHrsSC                      

> (scale). They aren’t my variable names: they are in the British Social

> Attitudes files which use mnemonics based on early SPSS 8-character

> limits.  Gets hairy with 2500 odd names and you don’t know where they are

> in the file! John F Hall (Mr)[Retired academic survey researcher] Email:  

 

> johnfhall@

 

>   Website: www.surveyresearch.weebly.com SPSS start page:

> www.surveyresearch.weebly.com/1-survey-analysis-workshop  

> =====================

> To manage your subscription to SPSSX-L, send a message to

 

> LISTSERV@.UGA

 

>  (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                                                                             

> =====================

> To manage your subscription to SPSSX-L, send a message to

 

> LISTSERV@.UGA

 

>  (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

 

 

 

 

 

-----

--

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.

 

--

View this message in context: http://spssx-discussion.1045642.n5.nabble.com/Trouble-copying-from-Word-to-sps-tp5731865p5731869.html

Sent from the SPSSX Discussion mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

 

=====================

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

===================== 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