ATLAS.ti for Mac
Rewritten from the ground up, Mac users are able to run ATLAS.ti natively, bringing you the power and flexibility of our leading QDA software.
Feature Matrix
The next milestone in professional qualitative data analysis.
ATLAS.ti is one of the most powerful tools for qualitative research. Managed documents, multi-document view, high-performance multimedia engine, intuitive margin-area coding for all data types, and much more.
Feature List
Multimedia
ATLAS.ti offers state-of-the art multimedia processing. Frame-level and wave previews make coding audio and video material a joy; images can be fully coded in every detail and segments can even be moved and re-sized.
Video
When you add a video document to a project, preview images are created. Next to the preview images you see the audio wave form. By right-clicking on the video preview you can set a number of display options in the context menu.
The various aspect of a loaded video document
Audio
Like with video clips, you can zoom in on the audio wave as needed:
Loaded audio file, zoomed in
Multi-Language
Simply switch the user interface to your desired language directly from the main menu (Tools > Preferences > Set User Interface Language).
Multi-Docs
You can open up to four documents side-by-side in the ATLAS.ti HU editor. This opens up fantastic possibilities for comparative work and makes work faster and more efficient all around.
Work on Multiple Documents At The Same Time
Documents can be dragged from the navigation pane or the P-Docs Manager onto the region button to open them.
HU editor with two document regions
Work on all open documents in their own margin-areas. All features and tools are available, so you can code, link, and annotate all as you would with a singe document.
You can switch the margin area off if you simply want to compare documents. To change the position of the documents, drag & drop them into the desired region:
Moving documents between regions
Linking Across Documents
The multi-document view makes it easy to link sections across various documents. Simply drag and drop a quotation between regions (1) to create what is called a hyperlink (3) in ATLAS.ti. The relation between the two data segments can be labeled (2), e.g. using a relation like supports, explains, contracts or discusses. You can chose amongst a number of predefined lables or create your own.
Creating hyperlinks across regions
Double-click on a hyperlink and a window pops up providing information on the linked quotation. Or use the short-cut Ctrl + double-click to immediately jump to the linked quotation. If the document containing the linked quotation is not currently loaded, it is loaded into the neighboring region and you can view the linked segments side-by-side.
Analysis Tools
ATLAS.ti 7 is a powerful analytical tool. Its individual analysis options are centrally organized and designed for maximum efficiency, accuracy, and performance. Cloud views provide very quick, accurate, and yet intuitive analytical access to your data material. The query tool, ccooccurence explorer and the codes-PD-table allow in-depth analysis.
All ATLAS.ti’s analysis tools can be used in complimentary combinations for extremely accurate and in-depth exploration of your material.
The Query Tool
Use the Query Tool to retrieve quotations using their associated codes. The simplest retrieval of this kind using the Code Manager is “search for quotations with codes.” Double-click on a code to retrieve all its quotations. This may be regarded as a query even if it is a simple one. The Query Tool can be used to create and process more complex queries that include combinations of codes.
A query is a search expression built from operands (codes and code families) and operators (e.g. NOT, AND, OR, etc.) that define the conditions a quotation must meet to be retrieved (e.g., all quotations coded with both codes A and B).
By selecting codes or code families and operators, a query can be built incrementally, instantaneously evaluated and displayed as a list of quotations. This incremental building of complex search queries gives you an exploratory approach for even the most complex queries.
The Query Tool window
Cloud Views for Codes and Documents
The list of codes can be displayed in various cloud views. You can display the cloud based on number of code usage or on number of linkages to other codes. The order can be arranged alphabetically or by frequency.
Code cloud view
Document cloud views can present the entire textual database or can be used for single documents. Below is an example that compares cloud views of four newspaper articles reporting on the Pussy Riot verdict.
Word Clouds comparing four newspaper articles
Cooccurence Explorer
The Cooccurrence Explorer allows you to see codes that co-occur across all or just some selected primary documents. The result is a cross-tabulation of codes. It is often meaningful to apply filters for certain codes and documents in order to concentrate on a more specific set of concepts. The side panels in the code and document manager allow you to quickly prepare the kind of filters you need in order to produce the kind of tables you want.
Settings: No color for table cell; use code color as header background
By clicking on the cells, you can access the qualitative data content behind it.
Accessing the qualitative information behind the numbers
The Codes-Primary-Documents Table
The Codes-PD-Table can provide an overview of code frequencies by documents, or can show code frequencies by document groups, code group frequencies by document, or document group.
Formatted Excel output of a codes-primary-documents-table
Visualization
ATLAS.ti 7 is a highly visually-oriented tool. This includes everything from user interface (laid out to maximize convenience and screen real estate) to various Object Managers to the intelligent layout of Network Views. Everything is equally intuitive and efficient.
Network Views
Network views represent complex information by showing it in an intuitively accessible graphic means. This more closely resembles the way human memories and thoughts are structured. Cognitive “load” in handling complex relationships is reduced with the aid of spatial representation techniques. ATLAS.ti uses networks to help represent and explore conceptual structures. Networks add a heuristic “right brain” approach to qualitative analysis.
The user can manipulate and display almost all objects within an ATLAS.ti project as nodes in a network view. This includes quotations, codes, code families, memos, memo families, other network views, primary documents (PDs), and PD families.
Network view displaying different types of objects and relations
Links are created either implicitly (i.e. when coding a quotation, the quotation is “linked” to a code) or explicitly by the user. Code-quotation associations also form a network that can be displayed like any other:
Code-quotations links
The links between two codes and the links between two quotations can be named. In addition, you can select whether a link should be directed or non-directed.
Along with using networks for general “mind mapping” and the visual design of theoretical models, network views also serve as a powerful analytical tool. Using networks for retrieval purposes is a well-known technique in information retrieval.
Finally, network views can be exported as graphic files and inserted into other applications. Or you can simply copy and paste them directly into MS Word and PowerPoint files.
Print with Margin
The Print with Margin options shows the coded document as you see it on screen. It is available for all text documents, PDF and image files.
Output of a coded PDF document
ATLAS.ti’s full-native PDF support lets you work with PDF files in their native layout, in just the way you have come expect. No ifs, ands, or buts.
ATLAS.ti treats your PDF documents exactly like Acrobat Reader. Work as smoothly and flexibly as you would in Acrobat, utilize bookmarks, tables of content, scrolling, and flexible page views. Code to your heart’s delight – text, images, or anything else that is on the page, down to whatever level of detail you need. Annotate, comment, link, search and query, visualize your results – it’s what computer-based data analysis was always meant to be.
Other QDA packages make you strip PDFs down to primitive text files. That is hardly an adequate way of working. Starting with ATLAS.ti 6, you have been able to keep your original PDFs untouched—layout, graphics, tables and all. That way your primary data always remains uncorrupted and complete.
Coding PDF documents
Working with PDFs in the manner allows you to move freely through your documents and code any section you like, regardless of whether it is text or graphics. Smooth scrolling, zooming, searching and auto-coding makes your work a breeze. Navigation tools and thumbnail images keep you “on track” every step of the way.
Consider the enormous possibilities:
The possibilities are truly endless and extremely exciting!
GeoData
One of the most exciting software features – and one that is likely to change the way you work if you haven’t used it yet – is ATLAS.ti’s geo-coding support.
ATLAS.ti embeds Google Earth™ and makes its functionality available inside the program. This has immense benefits and opens up fantastic possibilities for your work.
Picture, if you will, the world as your ultimate primary document. Freely move around in it and mark any section that interests you. Then treat that segment exactly the way you would any other document in ATLAS.ti. Code it, comment it, and link it to other objects. Use direct hyperlinks from other primary documents for supporting your arguments and for purposes of evidence or illustration.
The geo-coding facility even creates screenshots from any Google Earth™ view and assigns them as graphical primary documents. This “snapshot” helps you save system resources and makes sure that your reference is secure against changes.
All features of Google Earth™ are available (including camera angle and height-over-ground). Additionally, the interaction between the two programs is truly bi-directional. This means that work done in ATLAS.ti can be directly introduced into Google Earth™. Comment on a marked location in ATLAS.ti, and your comment will be displayed in Google Earth™. Powerful stuff!
And that’s still not all. Leverage the immense power of community as embodied by Google Earth™ layers and by the possibility to exchange and directly import Google Earth™’s KMZ files (complex community-created “overlays”). If it weren’t so tacky we’d call it “QDA 2.0.”
If your work is in or touches on fields like tourism, geography, urban planning, ethnology, cultural studies, sociology, health, action research, advertising and marketing – or even if you simply like to take and document trips – you are bound to profit from ATLAS.ti’s unique geo-coding feature. Just like us, you will soon wonder how you used to go without this feature.
Surveys
Imagine converting the results of a large online survey into a Hermeneutic Unit in ATLAS.ti with just a few mouse clicks. ATLAS.ti lets you do just that!
It’s that easy to work with survey data from nearly any source.
Here is a typical work flow:
Create an online survey using, for example, Google Docs (a very convenient tool, although other frameworks are supported as well)
Download and store the survey as an Excel table once your respondents have filled out the questionnaire
Import the table into ATLAS.ti
Voilà: Each row (= one respondent) becomes a primary document, and content is collected and created from the answers to open-ended questions. PD families are created from single and multiple-choice questions; quotations are created for each answer and coded with the respective question (you may use abbreviations). This accomplishes a lot of tedious pre-coding work in a few seconds.
Now you can get started with what really matters: Your analysis.
Mac Bundle Export
Export your project in full to the Mac OS X version of ATLAS.ti with a single click.
Teamwork Enabled
Every installation of ATLAS.ti 7 is always fully teamwork enabled. No extra cost, no special licenses, no add-on components, servers, etc. are necessary.
Team work is supported by integrated tools such as a sophisticated project Merge tool, user management, and project-specific libraries (shareable document repositories set up for a specific project).
iPad & Android Import
Directly import projects created with the ATLAS.ti Mobile apps on the iPad or on your favorite Android device (apps are available FREE from the repective app stores).
Start your project on the go on your mobile device-directly on location or on the road. Collect data, record audio and video, download documents, segment and code your data on your mobile device., Then transfer the entire project seamlessly straight into ATLAS.ti 7 and leverage the full power of its analysis tools, visualization, and data export.
Windows or Mac?
Which Version Should I Choose?
IMPORTANT: Please see the Feature Matrix above for a detailed comparison between the Windows and the Mac versions.
Not all features from the Windows version have been implemented (yet), while on the other hand the Mac version introduces features not available under Windows. — We urge you to consider carefully if you want to make the switch to the Mac version, so as to avoid potential problems or frustration. We will release currently absent features successively through service packs over the next few weeks/months. Still, it is important that you make an informed decision if the Mac version is right for you at this time.
The current Mac version is suitable for you if you…
…love to work with a native Mac app
…start a new project from scratch
…have no team project exchange requirements
…you only use Mac compatible multimedia documents in your projects
…currently have no need for geo documents
…feel more comfortable with having a virtually unlimited undo/redo
…work in different languages simultaneously – full Unicode support!
…don’t need associated documents yet (e.g. transcript and media)
Making the Switch – Now or Later?
In some cases, we advise users to wait with making the switch to the Mac edition. Going with the Windows version for now is your best choice if you…
…work in a team and/or need shared libraries
…work with non-Mac data formats (such as .wma, .wmv)
…work with geo-spatial data
…need to edit textual primary documents
Some of the above scenarios rely on features not currently available under Mac just yet. Please check the Feature Matrix above every once in a while over the next few months to see if your “favorite” tool has already been implemented.
Note: While project transfer from PC to Mac is fully supported, transfer from Mac to PC is currently not yet possible. This feature will not be available until the release of ATLAS.ti 8 for Windows.
Images
