Create codes automatically

NVivo provides tools that help you to create codes automatically.

The techniques in this article also apply to other types of codes—for example relationships.

Create codes from... Description

Importing files

Create codes automatically and code entire files to the codes when you import them.

  • An Evernote export file—use tags to create codes and then code to them.
  • An NCapture file—specify codes to code to when you use NCapture to gather web pages and social media data.

Query results

When you set up a query, you can choose to save the results as a new code. For example, you could

  • Run a Text Search query looking for the terms farming and cultivation and code all occurrences at a new code called agriculture.
  • Run a Coding query to find all content coded to wind power and solar power and gather it into a new code called alternative energy.
  • Run a Compound query to find content coded to carbon emissions that also contains the term Kyoto agreement and code it a new code called regulating carbon emissions.

You can also create codes from individual words in the results of a Word Frequency query. Manage query results

Mind Map

You can create codes automatically after you have built a mind map. The code hierarchy matches the mind map structure.

Coding Matrix

You can create a code hierarchy based on the rows and columns in a coding matrix. Coding matrices

Autocoding

Depending on the type of files you are working with, you can use autocoding techniques to automatically create codes for themes. For example, If you have a collection of question/answer interview documents—and the questions and answers are consistently formatted using paragraph styles—you can autocode to create a code for each question. Autocode documents

Automated insights

You can automatically create codes for themes with Automated Insights. If you are working with large volumes of data, or have limited time, you can quickly identify broad themes and sentiment in your files using the Autocode Wizard (available in NVivo installations with coding enhancements enabled). Automatically detect and code themes

You can also automatically detect and code to sentiment.

Automated insights may work better for some projects than others. Automated insights

Another NVivo project

You can import the code structure from another NVivo project. You can choose to import codes with or without the coded content.

Importing a codebook

To create your code structure, you can import a codebook that has been saved in the Codebook Exchange Format (.qdc). This is a standard format for sharing codes between Qualitative Data Analysis (QDA) tools.

To import a codebook:

1. On the Import tab, click Codebook.

2. Locate and open the .qdc file.

3. To include colors that have been assigned to codes, click the Include colors checkbox.

NOTE  Colors can vary between QDA tools. If you select the Include colors checkbox, NVivo uses the closest color match. This can lead to unexpected results and should be considered carefully if you have used colors to identify particular categories of codes.