Can I open an SPSS file in Excel?

Not directly: Excel does not read .sav files. Open it here and choose Save as Excel. The workbook has the data with its value labels, a second sheet with the numeric codes for analysis, and a sheet listing every variable with its label, format and missing values.

What are value labels and user-defined missing values?

SPSS stores answers as numbers and keeps the words separately: 1 might be labelled "Strongly agree". Value labels shows the words; untick it to see the codes. User-defined missing values are codes such as 99 or -1 that mean "no answer"; they are shown greyed and left out of the statistics, as SPSS does.

Is this a replacement for SPSS or PSPP?

For looking at data and a first summary, often yes. For analysis - crosstabs, t-tests, regression - use PSPP (the free SPSS look-alike), R or Python, or open the Excel export in a spreadsheet. This page reads files; it does not run SPSS syntax.

Why are some SAS values numbers instead of labels?

SAS keeps value labels (formats) in a separate catalog file, usually formats.sas7bcat, not in the .sas7bdat itself. Choose both files together and the labels appear.

Is the data uploaded?

No. The file is read in your browser, which matters for survey responses, patient records and other confidential data.

Stays on your computer How this works

Free SPSS & SAS viewer

Open SPSS .sav, SAS .sas7bdat and .xpt, and Stata .dta files without SPSS, SAS or Stata - see the data with its value labels, every variable's definition, descriptive statistics and frequencies, and save as Excel or CSV - entirely in your browser

Drag & drop a dataset here, or browse

SPSS .sav .zsav .por · SAS .sas7bdat (with its .sas7bcat catalog, if any) .xpt · Stata .dta · nothing is uploaded

About this SPSS and SAS viewer

SPSS, SAS and Stata each keep data in their own file format, and each costs hundreds of dollars a year. That leaves a lot of people with a .sav, .sas7bdat or .dta file they can't open: students handed a course dataset, journalists and researchers downloading public survey data, anyone sent results by a statistician. Excel and Google Sheets don't read these files, and the usual advice - install R, Python or PSPP - is a lot of setup to look at one table.

This page reads them with ReadStat, the open-source library behind R's haven package and Python's pyreadstat, compiled to run in your browser. You see the data as SPSS shows it, with value labels such as "Male" and "Female" in place of 1 and 2, the variable labels, formats and missing values, and a first look at the numbers: descriptive statistics and frequency tables. Save it as an Excel workbook or CSV to work with it anywhere. It is free to use, with no account and no upload limit, and it runs entirely in your browser: nothing is uploaded, and while the page stays open, a feature you have already used keeps working offline. R .rds and .RData files open in the RDS & RData Viewer.

What you can do

Open SPSS .sav, compressed .zsav and portable .por files, SAS .sas7bdat data sets and .xpt transport files, and Stata .dta files
See the data with value labels, or switch to the underlying codes
See each variable's label, type, format, value labels and user-defined missing values
Get descriptive statistics for every numeric variable: N, missing, mean, standard deviation, minimum, median and maximum
Get a frequency table for any labelled or categorical variable, with percent, valid percent and cumulative percent
Use a SAS format catalog (.sas7bcat) for the value labels of a .sas7bdat
Save as an Excel workbook (data with labels, data as codes, and the variable list), CSV or JSON

How to open a .sav file without SPSS

Drop the .sav, .sas7bdat, .xpt or .dta file onto the box above. For a SAS data set with custom formats, choose its .sas7bcat file at the same time.
Browse the data, check the Variables tab for what each column means, and open Statistics for a quick summary.
Save it as Excel or CSV to keep working with it in a spreadsheet.

Questions

Can I open an SPSS file in Excel?: Not directly: Excel does not read .sav files. Open it here and choose Save as Excel. The workbook has the data with its value labels, a second sheet with the numeric codes for analysis, and a sheet listing every variable with its label, format and missing values.
What are value labels and user-defined missing values?: SPSS stores answers as numbers and keeps the words separately: 1 might be labelled "Strongly agree". Value labels shows the words; untick it to see the codes. User-defined missing values are codes such as 99 or -1 that mean "no answer"; they are shown greyed and left out of the statistics, as SPSS does.
Is this a replacement for SPSS or PSPP?: For looking at data and a first summary, often yes. For analysis - crosstabs, t-tests, regression - use PSPP (the free SPSS look-alike), R or Python, or open the Excel export in a spreadsheet. This page reads files; it does not run SPSS syntax.
Why are some SAS values numbers instead of labels?: SAS keeps value labels (formats) in a separate catalog file, usually formats.sas7bcat, not in the .sas7bdat itself. Choose both files together and the labels appear.
Is the data uploaded?: No. The file is read in your browser, which matters for survey responses, patient records and other confidential data.

Built by John McMillan, a senior full-stack engineer. Open to remote roles: hire me.

Report a problem or suggest a feature