Deleting, Adding and Moving Variables

Deleting variables in SPSS is easy. Position the cursor in the header of the variable to be deleted and then press the delete key on the keyboard. (A word of caution: use the delete function sparingly. Once you delete a variable it is gone forever.) You can test this now by deleting one or two of the non-sensical variables you made up at the conclusion of the previous section.
SPSS has enormous capacity and can handle hundreds of variables and cases. At times you may wish to add a variable in a particular location.

To do this you highlight the column after which you wish the new variable to appear. Then click on the Data menu at the top of the file, scroll down to Insert Variable and click. Notice the new column labeled "var00001" has been inserted. To name this variable and enter data, follow the procedures outlined in the previous section of this module.

Sometimes you may wish to move variables to better organize your data. To do this highlight the column containing the variable to be moved. Next, left click and hold. Use the mouse to move left or right to find the desired location. Notice as you do this that a thin red line appears along the border of each column you pass. Releasing the mouse at any time will move the variable to this location. Alternately, the cut-and-paste method common to many software programs also works in SPSS.