Compatibility

Under the Hood - Compatibility

Scanning Data

For Check All That Apply questions, multiple responses for the same question are separated by commas. This is done for compatibility with Cardiff's TeleForm and Principia's Remark scanning software. If you are importing data from Scantron or NCR scanners, set up the scan file so that these commas appear (contact your scanner rep for details).

Analysis in Other Programs

Raosoft SurveyWin 4.x can also open EZSurvey form definition files (.EZF).

In SurveyWin, select Utilities Import database From ASCII.
Select your EZSurvey form (the .ezf file). This will create a new SurveyWin project that shares a database with EZSurvey.

Visio

If you create questions like city, state, address, or zip code, Visio Maps will be able to directly open and chart your EZSurvey database.

Open a map in Visio, then select Tools Get external data from the menu.
The wizard will let you pick an EZSurvey DBF file, which you can join to any map. Visio Maps will update with the latest results whenever you open the map file.

SPSS and SAS

Both programs can open EZSurvey's DBF databases directly. You can also use Analysis Statistics, then Save As to create a delimited ASCII file which other statistics programs can read. These programs impose length limits on field and their names. Design your form with this in mind to avoid making changes during analysis.

Other information

To analyze Check All That Apply questions in Access, FoxBase, and Paradox, export the database in SPSS format and use the exported database.
If you open a DBF file in Microsoft Excel, do not save it in Excel or you may lose data! Excel saves only the first nine letters in each field, so names and addresses will be truncated. In general, you should convert your file to text using Database Edit Database Export to ASCII and then work with it in Excel.

Note: - Excel may generate an error when trying to open an ASCII file.

Excel generates an SYLK error sometime when an ASCII file is loaded. It does this because the first field name in the first column has the value ID. You must change the value or change the position of the column. Excel tries to open ASCII files with the default SYLK file type. When Excel sees ID, it tries to look for the file type parameter. Since tab delimited and comma delimited files are not formatted in this way, Excel shows the SYLK error message.