Re: st: Spss vs Stata

[Jeph Herrin <stata@spandrel.net>]

I would like to second the primary point Walt makes. I consider myself
a dedicated and knowledgable Stata user, and I still find it annoyingly
complicated to produce the output my colleagues and clients expect. My
collaborators want a Word file with Word tables so they can mark it up
with comments and edits and send it back to me. To this end I have
even written a suite of do-files which write Stata output in RTF,
so that I can in effect write "Word" files, despite, like Walt, having
a personal preference for TeX. And I do a substantial amount of work
for US government agencies which want Powerpoint reports, period. To
say that Stata can produce nice output in LaTex misses the point of the
original post. I would gladly pay twice as much for a Stata license if
it could produce attractive output I could directly paste into MS
applications.

cheers,
Jeph



On 8/2/2010 10:53 AM, Data Analytics Corp. wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I rarely comment to postings, but I have to say something here. I'm not
> an SPSS user. The most I do with it is receive data in SPSS format from
> my clients. I use a combination of R for its sheer programming power
> (plus I came out of Bell Labs so I was raised on the S language) and
> Stata for many routines that are just easier to use. I do many graphs in
> Stata often having a dozen graph tabs opened at once plus logit
> regressions -- all for my clients who pay the bills. These people
> require results in PowerPoint, not Word or publication-oriented formats.
> They want presentation-ready results, almost 100% in PowerPoint. Whether
> we like it or not, the people who pay the bills want PowerPoint slides.
>
> Now here's the problem with Stata and many of the comments made about
> SPSS and Stata. The comments mentioned many times that there are ways to
> get output into Latex for publication-quality output. I need it in
> PowerPoint! And I'm sure there are many others like me (does any one
> know the breakdown of Stata users between pure academics worried about
> publications and consultants/business people?). How do I take a dozen
> graphs and get them into PowerPoint without cutting and pasting each
> one, one at a time (as a note, S-Plus has a PowerPoint wizard that is
> amazing and R has a package called R2PPT that works fairly well)? How do
> I get logit regression output into a PowerPoint slide without coping,
> pasting, and laboriously reformatting so it looks "pretty"? This is
> where users like me need help. We don't need LaTeX functions (by the
> way, I'm also a heavy LaTeX user, preferring this over Word any day),
> but rather functions to get things into PowerPoint. To me, the gist of
> the thread on SPSS and Stata is how to get useful output to give to
> anyone, and my vote is for functions that are PowerPoint oriented.
>
> I welcome any suggestions on how to get output into PowerPoint easily,
> quickly, and with minimum reformatting.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Walt
>
> ________________________
>
> Walter R. Paczkowski, Ph.D.
> Data Analytics Corp.
> 44 Hamilton Lane
> Plainsboro, NJ 08536
> ________________________
> (V) 609-936-8999
> (F) 609-936-3733
> walt@dataanalyticscorp.com
> www.dataanalyticscorp.com
>
> _____________________________________________________
>
> On 8/2/2010 5:03 AM, SCHOUMAKER Bruno wrote:
> > I still have to use SPSS for my teaching - but I am working hard to
> > convince a sufficient number of colleagues to switch to Stata.
> > Incidentally, I started using Stata when doing my postdoc in Montreal :-)
> >
> > SPSS is is also available in French, which is thought by some people
> > in French speaking places (like here) to be an advantage over SPSS.
> > However, the translation is sometimes so weird in the latest SPSS
> > versions that I personnally consider it to be an disadvantage.
> >
> > I agree SPSS can produces nice tables, but with some user-written
> > packages and some investments in programming, I find Stata much more
> > powerful even for tables.
> >
> > Best,
> >
> > Bon apprentissage de Stata...
> >
> > Bruno
> >
> > Le 2/08/2010 2:04, Yves Therriault a écrit :
> > > Dear Stata users,
> > >
> > > I've been using SPSS for 20 years. For the time being, I still use a
> > > six years old version of SPSS (12.01). For many reasons, I told my
> > > organisation that I would rather purchasing one licence of Stata
> > > instead of upgrading to the newest release of SPSS (18.0).
> > >
> > > A few months ago, I've asked former SPSS users to write about their
> > > experience with Stata. Generally, people who have decided to switch
> > > from SPSS to Stata aren't looking back.
> > >
> > > In order to learn the basics of Stata more easily when the software is
> > > installed on my computer, I bought 3 introductory books : A Gentle
> > > Introduction to Stata ; An Introduction to Stata for Health
> > > Researchers and, finally Data Analysis Using Stata.
> > >
> > > I'm interested to hear from those who made the switch to Stata and
> > > particularly about the lurning curve regarding the management of Stata
> > > output. Generally, Stata seems to be far more superior to SPSS in many
> > > ways. But, in my humble opinion, Stata is currently far behind SPSS
> > > concerning how it displays its output. I'm aware that a lot of
> > > routines have been written by Stata users to customize outputs though.
> > >
> > > Just in case Stata programmers were monitoring this list, I would be
> > > very pleased if the company decided to "improve" the output display in
> > > a future release. Perhaps, another possible feature would gave the
> > > user the choice between a "standard" Stata output and a Spss-like
> > > output.
> > >
> > > Of course, I don't intent to start a controversy here. Maybe I'm just
> > > an "old SPSS user" who is a little bit afraid to have to learn a new
> > > syntax ! : - )
> > >
> > > Finally, I just want tell you all how much I appreciate this list.
> > > This is a very nice and vibrant community. I'm sure that I will learn
> > > a lot from Stata experts as soon as I start using the software.
> > >
> > > Kind regards,
> > >
> > > Yves (Province de Québec)
> > >
> > > P.S. Sorry for the bad English. I write in English just once in a while.
> > >
> > > *
> > > * For searches and help try:
> > > * http://www.stata.com/help.cgi?search
> > > * http://www.stata.com/support/statalist/faq
> > > * http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/
*
*   For searches and help try:
*   http://www.stata.com/help.cgi?search
*   http://www.stata.com/support/statalist/faq
*   http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/