H: The preprocessor in MAXQDA
The preprocessor enables you to insert larger texts standardized and already pre-coded. If you have a interview, an online survey, or the contents of a discussion forum, you may quickly supply the text material with control characters and therefore create individual codes, codings, and texts immediately when inserting the material into MAXQDA.
Example:
An online survey contained two questions and 100 subjects filled out the survey. One rtf file was created from all the entries which had been equipped with control characters. After the import of this single rtf file all 100 texts are in MAXQDA (one text for every subject, e.g. with names ID1-ID100) and, for example, 2 code words “Answer to Question 1“ “Answer to Question2“. All texts have already been coded accordingly to these two code words.
2. Importing texts in a structured way
In MAXQDA one usually creates a text group and then inserts the desired number of rtf texts. With the preprocessor it is possible to insert any given number of texts in just one rtf file and MAXQDA will automatically realize where to separate the texts. For the preprocessor in MAXQDA to recognize within a text where a new text begins the text has to be completed with the respective control characters.
The following syntax has to be used:
#TEXTTextname
describes the beginning and the name of a text. Until the beginning of the next text syntax the entire content of an .rtf file will be assigned to an independent text in MAXQDA. The following text as a content of an rtf file would produce three texts in MAXQDA which would be named Person A , Person B, and Person C.
#TEXTPersonA
My birthplace is south of New York. I moved later.
#TEXTPersonB
I am from the Black forest and I am also going to stay there for a long time.
#TEXTPersonC
I am from a small town near Chicago. Not much larger than 200 people. It’s about time I moved.
Make sure, that there are no blank spaces in between # and TEXT, as well as in between TEXT and Textname, and capitalize the key word TEXT. Save the file in RTF format and close Word.
Tip: You can simplify this procedure considerably if you enter, for instance, “>“ instead of “#TEXT”. For the text name it could be meaningful to insert a placeholder character first. After completing the entry you may substitute the placeholders with the key words (so, e.g., “> “ with “#TEXT”) with the help of the “Searching and Replacing” function in Word.
In order to import this text into MAXQDA follow these instructions:
1. Create a text group (or use an existing one)
2. Right-click on the text group and select TEXT-PREPROCESSOR
3. Enter the save location of your rtf file and confirm by pressing OK – done.
3. Importing pre-coded texts
Aside from the common import and separation into different texts it is also possible to have the contents of an .rtf file being coded directly when importing. This makes sense when your texts have a contextual structure that can be turned into codes in a meaningful way.
For this the entry syntax has to look as followed :
#CODECodename
the content is placed here
#ENDCODE
Important:
no blank spaces between the # sign and the word CODE, as well as between CODE and CODENAME; also make sure to capitalize the keywords (CODE, ENDCODE). It is also mandatory that you put a line break behind #CODECodename and #ENDCODE.
Tip: As mentioned in step 2 of this chapter, the entry procedure can be simplified by using the “Search and Replace“ Word function.
The example given above could, meaningfully extended, look like this.
#TEXTPersonA
#CODEOrigin
My birthplace is south of NewYork.
#ENDCODE
I moved later.
#TEXTPersonB
#CODEOrigin
I am from the Black forest
#ENDCODE
and I am also going to stay there for a long time.
#TEXTPersonC
#CODEOrigin
I am from a small town near Chicago. Not much larger than 200 people.
#ENDCODE
It’s about time I moved.
When importing the lines as a rtf file MAXqda creates three texts (Person A , Person B , Person C), a code (Origin) and has already assigned the given passages to this code.
Practice example:
About 30 participants worked together in an online seminar for 3 months and exchanged information through a discussion board. In order to better analyze the discourse which took place in the forum, the text is supposed to be imported into MAXQDA2007. If one were to proceed via Copy&Paste from the website and then manually code the material it would take days, if not weeks. In this case you may also enter data from the data base by adding a preprocessor control character, copying the result to Word, and then inserting it, as an RTF file, into MAXQDA2007. In this way it was possible, in just a couple of minutes, to import over 500 DIN A4 pages of forum entries into MAXQDA, separated by threads and pre-coded for authors; all ready for the analysis (incl. selective programming from database). This process is more closely elaborated in: Kuckartz, Grunenberg, Dresing, Qualitative Analyse: computer supported, 2007
