When you open MAXQDA, the following start dialog will appear in which you can:
- choose a user name,
- start a new project,
- open existing projects,
- open example projects, and
- view your license information.
The window area to the right displays all the latest MAXQDA news.
Entering your username
Enter your name in the "User" field and your signature will be added to everything you do in MAXQDA, be it importing documents, coding segments or creating memos. This becomes particularly useful when working in teams, as it’s easier to see who has done what.
Starting a new project
Before you can analyze your data with MAXQDA, you need to create a new MAXQDA project into which you can import your data. Click on New, enter a project name and choose a location to save your project. (Please see the note on file saving locations below.) As soon as MAXQDA has created a new project you can start to import your data.
Opening existing projects
MAXQDA lists the recently opened projects in the lower window area, which you can open with a double-click. Via right-click on the project, you can open the file location of your project file. If you want to open a project that doesn’t appear in this list, click on Open and choose a file from the dialog window that appears.
Important note about saving MAXQDA projects: As MAXQDA is a database program, all changes are always saved directly in the project file. For this reason, it is very important that the computer's connection to the project file is not interrupted, otherwise there may be problems with the project file.
To avoid data loss, we recommend that you do not open the project file from the following locations:
- USB drives
- network drives
- external hard disks
- folders synchronized with cloud services (Dropbox, Google Drive, iCloud, etc.).
We strongly recommend to copy your project to a local hard drive (e.g. to the desktop) and open it from there. Of course you can save your MAXQDA projects on USB drives, network drives etc., but you should not open the file directly from there.
Opening example projects
Click on the Examples button to list the featured example projects, with which you can thoroughly explore all MAXQDA’s functions. Just click on a project in the list to open it.
Changes to projects are saved automatically
MAXQDA does not include a save function which you must click when you finish working on a project.
MAXQDA operates as a database program, which means that all changes you make to a project, including the import of texts or later coding of data, are automatically saved. Exceptions are edits to texts, memos and MAXMaps. These are saved automatically every few minutes, as well as automatically when you close the window and the project.
Opening projects from earlier versions (MAXQDA 2020 or older)
To open a project that was created in an earlier version of MAXQDA, follow these steps:
- Start MAXQDA and select Open in the start window.
- In the dialog window that appears select file type of the old project.
MAXQDA 2022 for Windows can open the following project file types:
- MAXQDA 20 (extension: MX20)
- MAXQDA 18 (extension: MX18)
- MAXQDA 12 (extension: MX12)
MAXQDA 2022 for macOS can open the following project file types:
- MAXQDA 20 (extension: MX20)
- MAXQDA 18 (extension: MX18)
- MAXQDA 12 (extension: MX12)
Opening MAXQDA 2022 projects in MAXQDA 20
To open a MAXQDA 2022 project in the previous version MAXQDA 2020, you can save it from MAXQDA 2022 in the previous format:
- Open the project in MAXQDA 20202 (If you do not have a license for MAXQDA 2022, you can also use the freeMAXQDA Reader.)
- Select Start > Save project as from the menu bar.
- Set the file type to "MAXQDA 2020 Projects", select a file name and location, and then click Save.
Select the appropriate file format in the file dialog box
MAXQDA then saves a copy of the opened project in 2020 format. When converting to the old format, the following adjustments are made to the project file:
- Text codes in PDF documents are converted to image codes.
- emoticodes in the “Code System” window are converted to standard codes. Their code names start with “Emoticode” followed by their symbol’s name.
- Memo titles are shortened to 63 characters.
- Code and document summaries in code and document memos are deleted.
