Open questions and in general all the text type variables are hardly used to produce tables for the very fact that they contain text, so there's no summarized information. One of the most common method used to transform these variables into spendable information for our tables and charts is to transform them into categorical variables.
Assuming that the criteria for defining group of 'similar' responses, the number and names of the categories to be created, is a personal choice of the researcher, the steps listed below are useful for the most common cases.
+ select the text variable in the variable list (Editor Mode) and click on 'Recode Variable'
+ if you want to 'combine' answers that belongs to the same 'category', select them on the list and click on 'Combine Values'
+ since is possible to 'Combine' as much answers as you want, the field 'Description' is editable, assigning the name of the desired final category label
+ categories can be moved up and down in the list, automatically changing their code, simply by select them and using the arrow buttons
+ click on 'Create' to create the new variable and take into account of all the changes made before.
NB: remember that without clicking on 'Create' any changes done before will be lost when closing DataDynamic.
You can follow the steps described above by checking the video on our Youtube channel:
Consult the online manual for a more in-depth description, more complex scenarios involving the usage of algorithms for identifying similar text, other advanced features and examples.