General options

Variable Lists

These settings control the display of variables in dialog box lists. You can display variable names or variable labels. Names or labels can be displayed in alphabetical or file order or grouped by measurement level. (For more information on measurement level, see Variable measurement level.) Display order affects only source variable lists. Target variable lists always reflect the order in which variables were selected.

Roles

Some dialogs support the ability to pre-select variables for analysis based on defined roles. See the topic Roles for more information.

Use predefined roles: By default, pre-select variables based on defined roles.
Use custom assignments: By default, do not use roles to pre-select variables.

You can also switch between predefined roles and custom assignment within the dialogs that support this functionality. The setting here controls only the initial default behavior in effect for each dataset.

Maximum Number of Threads

The number of threads that multithreaded procedures use when calculating results. The Automatic setting is based on the number of available processing cores. Specify a lower value if you want to make more processing resources available to other applications while multithreaded procedures are running. This option is disabled in distributed analysis mode.

Output

No scientific notation for small numbers in tables: Suppresses the display of scientific notation for small decimal values in output. Very small decimal values will be displayed as 0 (or 0.000). This setting only affects output with the "general" format, which is determined by the application. This setting does not affect the display of significance levels or other statistics with a standard range of values. The format of many numeric values in pivot tables is based on the format of the variable associated with the numeric value.
Apply locale's digit grouping format to numeric values: Applies the current locale’s digit grouping format to numeric values in pivot tables and charts as well as in the Data Editor. For example, in a French locale with this setting enabled the value 34419,57 will be displayed as 34 419,57.; The grouping format does not apply to trees, Model Viewer items, numeric values with the DOT or COMMA format, or numeric values with a DOLLAR or custom currency format. It does, however, apply to the display of the days value for numeric values with a DTIME format--for example, to the value of ddd in the format ddd hh:mm.
Display a leading zero for decimal values: Displays leading zeros for numeric values that consist only of a decimal part. For example, when leading zeros are displayed, the value .123 is displayed as 0.123. This setting does not apply to numeric values that have a currency or percent format. Except for fixed ASCII files (*.dat), leading zeros are not included when the data are saved to an external file.
Measurement system: The measurement system used (points, inches, or centimeters) for specifying attributes such as pivot table cell margins, cell widths, and space between tables for printing.
Notification: Controls the manner in which the program notifies you that it has finished running a procedure and that the results are available in the Viewer.

Windows

Look and feel: Controls the basic appearance of windows and dialog boxes. If you notice any display issues after changing the look and feel, try shutting down and restarting the application.
Open syntax window at startup: Syntax windows are text file windows used to enter, edit, and run commands. If you frequently work with command syntax, select this option to automatically open a syntax window at the beginning of each session. This is useful primarily for experienced users who prefer to work with command syntax instead of dialog boxes.
Open only one dataset at a time: Closes the currently open data source each time you open a different data source using the menus and dialog boxes. By default, every time you use the menus and dialog boxes to open a new data source, that data source opens in a new Data Editor window, and any other data sources open in other Data Editor windows remain open and available during the session until explicitly closed.; When you select this option, it takes effect immediately but does not close any datasets that were open at the time the setting was changed. This setting has no effect on data sources opened using command syntax, which relies on DATASET commands to control multiple datasets. See the topic Working with Multiple Data Sources for more information.
Display native macOS file dialogs: When selected, file selection dialogs in the macOS version of SPSS® Statistics are presented in native macOS format. Historically, file selection dialogs have been heavily customized to accommodate specific SPSS Statistics file features. This settings allows you to default file selection dialogs to native macOS format.
Note: This feature is available only in macOS environments.

Auto-Recovery

These settings control the IBM® SPSS Statistics automatic recovery feature. Automatic recovery is designed to recover unsaved files and content in instances where the application quits unexpectedly. You can select to enable/disable the automatic recovery feature (the feature is enabled by default), select a time interval (in minutes) between saving files, set the maximum number of restore points to save, and view or change the auto-recovery file location.

Note: Selecting to save files too frequently (for example, every 2 minutes) may result in decreased system performance.

Upon relaunching SPSS Statistics after an unexpected exit, you are presented with an IBM SPSS Statistics error report, which allows you to enter information about your session prior to the unexpected exit. After leaving the exit report, you are presented with the Document Recovery dialog, which provides options for recovering prior session data or deleting the saved session data. For more information, see Auto-Recovery.