Upload & Setup #

Upload Source Texts #

• New Project or Upload Sources (green + in the Projects bar): besides files, you can paste plain text into Or paste text; it is imported like a TXT file as pasted-text.txt. You can combine paste with file picks in one step.
• Click to select one or more PDFs, DOCX, RTF, TXT, or XLSX files
• XLSX: Requires a statements tab with source_id and text columns; other columns become custom columns. Optional sources tab for metadata. Adds sources to the current project (no new project created).
• Optionally split large documents into multiple sources using separator patterns
• Optionally set custom columns on upload (applies to all uploaded sources)
• Type an existing column name (or a new one) and optionally set a fixed value, e.g. Country = Zambia
• Leave the value blank to just add the column (no value set during upload)
• Confirm Upload modal (shown when "Show Advanced" is on in New Project or Upload Sources) lets you adjust filenames→ID mapping, add custom columns, and split sources. When Show Advanced is off (default), uploads use defaults (keep filenames as IDs, no custom columns, no split) and skip this screen.
• On completion, the app automatically:
  • selects the sources via Sources Dropdown
  • switches to the Create Links sub-tab and loads the first source's text into it
  • on the right, switches to Sources panel with and the View & Edit subpanel

Splitting documents into multiple sources with source separators#

This feature helps you split individual documents you upload into multiple sources. These separators are hard: you use them just once, on uploading one or more documents, to produce multiple sources.

• In the Confirm Upload screen, there is a Sources Separator text box
• Text lines matching special "regex" patterns separate into multiple sources. So if you have sections marked with "Source Number 12", "Source Number 13" etc, just put "Source Number.*" in the box.
• This will produce multiple sources with "Source Number 12" etc as source_id
• Live preview of new source IDs with count
• User can leave blank for normal upload

Section Separators#

This feature helps you split existing source texts into sections. These separators are soft: they don't permanently change the file and you can add or remove one or more separators on the fly.

• Into the box, type one regex pattern per line. The pattern must match the whole separator line in your source text, so use .* to match the rest of the line. For example, if your text contains lines like statement_id: 42 or Question 7: ..., enter statement_id:.* or Question.* respectively.
• Matching lines are styled as headings in the text viewer.
• Each link is assigned to the section it falls under. The matched text (e.g. statement_id: 42) becomes the section value, available as a column (e.g. section_statement_id) in:
• The Everything Filter — so you can show only links from specific sections
• The Sections Filter
• Pivot tables and statistics
• Links before the first separator in a source get the value Initial Text.

Sample Check#

You want a table showing your sample: gender * region?

Use this simple customisable table to check your sample according to any custom columns you have defined.

• See also: Pivot Tables and Analysis Filters.

Custom Column Analysis#

• Aggregate by multi-select for cross-tabulation

• 1 column: Simple count table

• 2 columns: Cross-tabulation table

• Maximum 10 values per column for analysis
• URL state preserved for bookmarking

View & Edit Your Sources#

• See also: Tips for all tables and Custom columns.

Sources Table #

• NEW column Source Prompt - this new column shows the first few characters of any text in this field. It can be edited as usual with the existing pencil icon/ edit button in each row.
• Checkbox selection for analysis pipeline
• Row editing with keyboard navigation
• Custom columns for metadata
• Column visibility control:
• Click the small ⋮ in any header to hide that column (or hide selected columns) and quickly show hidden columns again.
• Manage Columns is the main source-table column manager. It includes a checkbox list for Sources table columns, with Select all / Select none / All source / No source, and drag-to-reorder.
• Uncoded column - Shows true/false for sources with no links; filterable to find uncoded sources
• Fullscreen mode available

Table Editing Features#

• Range selection - Click and drag
• Copy/paste - Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V
• Arrow key navigation
• Delete/Backspace to clear cells
• Column/row selection - Click headers
• Double-click editing

Custom Columns#

Custom columns are where you store extra data about each of your sources, e.g. gender, location, type; whatever you want. You can create, edit and remove custom columns. Then you can use them to filter your data.

• You can also use them for source-level memo columns; see Link custom columns for the same idea on individual causal links.
• Manage Columns opens a modal to add/remove custom columns, choose which Sources table columns are visible, and reorder them
• After you add a custom column and reopen the modal, the new column appears as an existing project column; the add box starts empty again
• Double-click a cell in a custom column to edit it or via source edit modal
• Copy and paste selections with ctrl-C, ctrl-V.
• These columns are available elsewhere in the app, e.g.
• In the Source Groups filter
• In the Everything filter
• In the Sample Check table
• Link custom columns work the same way in the Links Table, but apply to individual causal links rather than sources.