usemtw - import Minitab *.mtw datasets into Stata

usemtw will import to Stata the Minitab binary data files (*.mtw).

Limitations

Here is what the users need to know about the assumptions and limitations of usemtw:

• MTW is a file extension. Not all files with extension MTW are Minitab files.
• Minitab's MTW files are internally structured based on different formats (generations). This converter supports early MTW layouts, corresponding to 5.1 and 6.1. This program will not read the MTW files based on the 12, 13 or later formats. At this moment it is not entirely clear, which Minitab releases write data in which file format.
• Compressed Minitab files are not supported (and likely will not be supported in the future).
• Data is imported as floats, unless double precision is specified in the data file. No types optimization is done separately, so running compress is recommended after reading the data in.
• Variables are given names c1,c2,....,ck. Data labels (if present in the Minitab file) are used for variable labels.
• Variables may be missing from a file (e.g. a Minitab may contain data for the first, second, and 5th columns of data. In this case variables will not be numbered consecutively).
• No special treatment of dates: if dates are present, they are imported as the declared variable type (numeric or string).
• Missing values are detected and recoded. It is not clear at the moment whether the missing values may vary by meaning or data type.
• Some elements of the Minitab data files are unknown. When they become known they may affect how other elements of the files are interpreted
• The importer is implemented in Mata and will work on any platform supported by Stata (Windows, Mac or Linux). However caution should be exercised if the Minitab files originate from a non-Windows platform.
• Date, but not time is stored in the Minitab files. When a file is imported, it is given a timestamp with the recorded date and time 12:34. This may change in the future.
• The convertor only works one way - importing the Minitab data into Stata. Minitab supports a number of input file formats besides its own native format, so for a reverse data exchange pick something more open, such as ASCII plain text, or an Excel format.

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