An often requested feature is to export variable and value labels to Excel. This handy tool creates an SPSS Dataset containing these labels. It can either be be saved as an Excel sheet or further edited in SPSS.

SPSS Create Dictionary Dataset Tool - How To Use

• Make sure you have the SPSS Python Essentials installed.
• Next, download and install the Dictionary Dataset Tool. Note that this is an SPSS custom dialog.
• Click Utilities Create Dictionary Dataset.
• Click Paste and run the pasted syntax.
• This creates a new dataset called Dictionary_Overview holding all value labels and variable labels.
• Note that the value for all variable labels is (the lowest value found in the dictionary -1). It merely serves as a placeholder for the value label "Variable Label" and should not be taken literally.
• To avoid confusion, display value labels rather than values by clicking the value labels icon (see screenshot below).
• Clicking the tool's Help button will take you to this tutorial. We very much appreciate your feedback on it.

SPSS Dictionary Dataset Tool - Result

Saving the dictionary overview as Excel sheet

Creating a single sheet Excel workbook holding the dictionary information is demonstrated below. Note that it saves value labels rather than values. For more on setting your working directory see Change Your Working Directory.

Final Note

We've had some doubts regarding the optimal output format before we finally went with a single dataset holding all value and variable labels. An alternative we considered was to directly create an Excel workbook with separate sheets for value labels and variable labels. We may offer this as a second version at some point.