SPSS Viewer & Stata Viewer for VS Code (SAV, DTA, XPT Files)

Zovo Pro: USD 19 once, every Zovo tool. Export, Codebook and Crosstab are Pro, with 3 free tries each; viewing data stays free.

Open SPSS .sav and .zsav, Stata .dta and SAS transport .xpt data files in a VS Code tab, without SPSS, Stata or SAS installed. See the data in a fast grid with value labels, variable labels, missing values and dates, then sort, filter, summarize and copy. Read-only, no network, millions of rows.

SPSS viewer: a survey file in the data grid with value labels on, a filter on the region column and the row numbers from the file

What you get for free

Data grid. Rows load a page at a time from a reader in the background, so a file with millions of rows scrolls at once. Click a column header to sort; click again for descending.
Value labels or codes. One button switches between "Strongly agree" and the code 5 behind it, in the grid and in the copied text.
Variables tab. Name, label, type, display format, measure (nominal, ordinal, scale), user-defined missing values and value labels of every variable, with a filter box.
Missing values. The system missing value shows as a grey dot. SPSS user-defined missing values (discrete values and ranges) and Stata .a to .z show in grey italics and are left out of the statistics.
Dates. SPSS DATE, ADATE, EDATE, SDATE, DATETIME, TIME and DTIME, Stata %td, %tc, %tw, %tm, %tq, %th and %ty, and SAS DATE, DATETIME and TIME formats show as dates and times.
Filter. Pick a column and type text, a comparison (> 30, <= 5, != 9), a range (18..65) or missing.
Summary. The Σ in a column header shows valid and missing counts, mean, standard deviation, minimum, quartiles, median, maximum and the most frequent values. Variables with value labels get a frequency table with percent, valid percent and cumulative percent.
Copy. Click a cell, shift-click another, and press Ctrl+C (Cmd+C on a Mac): the range goes to the clipboard as tab-separated text with the variable names, ready to paste into Excel or a document.
Info tab. Rows, variables, file label, creation date, encoding, compression, the program that wrote the file, the weight variable and the documents stored in the file.

The Variables tab of a Stata file: labels, storage types, display formats and value labels of each variable

Zovo Pro tools

Three tools for analysts and researchers, in the toolbar of the viewer and the Command Palette. Each has 3 free tries on your computer; a try counts only when the file is written or the crosstab is on screen. Escape or Cancel never uses a try.

Export data to CSV, Excel (.xlsx) or JSON, with value labels or with codes. The export takes the rows in the current view, so a filter and a sort apply. The Excel file has a second sheet with the variables and their value labels.
Codebook as Markdown, HTML or CSV: every variable with its label, type, format, measure, missing value definitions, value labels with counts and percentages, and summary statistics. Useful for a data appendix, a data management plan or a quick check before analysis.
Crosstab of two variables, with an optional third as a layer: counts, row, column and total percentages, and a Pearson chi-square test with degrees of freedom, p-value and a note when expected counts are below 5. Save the table as CSV or Markdown.

Zovo Pro is USD 19 once and turns on the Pro tools of every Zovo extension. When the free tries are used, the tool shows the ways to pay: by card, GitHub Sponsors or PayPal, or enter a key you already have. Nothing about Pro shows when you open a file. The setting statsViewer.showProTools hides the three buttons.

A crosstab of satisfaction by region with row percentages and the chi-square test

Supported files

Format	Files	Read
SPSS system file	`.sav` (uncompressed and bytecode compressed), `.zsav` (zlib)	Variables, long names, labels, value labels (also for long strings), user-defined missing values, very long strings (over 255 characters), measure levels, the encoding record, documents, the weight variable
Stata	`.dta` releases 113, 114, 115 (Stata 8 to 12), 117 (Stata 13), 118 and 119 (Stata 14 to 18)	Variables, labels, value labels, `strL` long strings, extended missing values `.a` to `.z`, display formats and dates, either byte order
SAS transport	`.xpt` version 5 (the format of FDA submissions) and version 8 (long names and labels)	Variables, labels, formats, IBM floating point numbers, missing values `.A` to `.Z` and `._`. A file with several datasets shows the first one and names the others on the Info tab

Not read: SAS .sas7bdat files, SPSS portable .por files and Stata files older than release 113 (Stata 7 and before).

Open a file

Click a .sav, .zsav, .dta or .xpt file in the Explorer. It opens in the viewer.
Or run SPSS & Stata Viewer: Open in SPSS & Stata Viewer from the Command Palette.
Run SPSS & Stata Viewer: Get started for a short walkthrough with sample files.

Safe with any file

The file is read in a separate worker thread with a memory limit and a time limit. A damaged or hostile file shows a message, and the editor keeps working.
Every count in the file is checked against the file size before memory is used. A file cut short shows the rows that were complete.
Names, labels and values are shown as plain text, never as HTML. The viewer page has a strict content security policy and loads nothing from the internet.
The viewer never writes to your data file.

Commands

Command	What it does
SPSS & Stata Viewer: Open in SPSS & Stata Viewer	Open a data file in the viewer
SPSS & Stata Viewer: Open a sample SPSS file	Open the bundled sample survey
SPSS & Stata Viewer: Export data to CSV, Excel or JSON (Pro)	Export the current view
SPSS & Stata Viewer: Write a codebook (Pro)	Codebook as Markdown, HTML or CSV
SPSS & Stata Viewer: Crosstab with chi-square (Pro)	Crosstab two variables

Settings

Setting	Default	What it does
`statsViewer.showProTools`	`true`	Show the Export, Codebook and Crosstab buttons
`statsViewer.showSupportLinks`	`true`	Show the small links at the bottom of the viewer
`statsViewer.askForRating`	`true`	Ask once, after a few days of use, whether you want to rate the extension

Limits

Up to 40 million cells (for example 2 million rows of 20 variables) and 200 million characters of text are read; a larger file shows the first rows and says so on the Info tab.
Excel export stops at Excel's limit of 1,048,575 rows; CSV has no such limit.
A crosstab takes variables with up to 200 categories, and up to 50 layers.

Privacy

No network requests and no telemetry. The files you open stay on your computer.

Support Zovo

Zovo Pro: USD 19 once, every Zovo viewer. Get Zovo Pro on GitHub Sponsors to turn on the Pro tools in this extension and in the other Zovo extensions you use. The free features stay free.

Zovo extensions have no ads and no tracking. They are made by theluckystrike on GitHub. You can also support the work with no Pro:

Need your format supported?

Open a format request with a sample file, and I reply there whether it can be done. For USD 299 once, through this GitHub Sponsors tier, I add your file format or a missing feature to this extension, with tests, within 7 days.

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SPSS Viewer & Stata Viewer (SAV, DTA, XPT Files)

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