Supported content types in ATLAS.ti

Who this article is for

This article is for ATLAS.ti users who want to understand which types of qualitative data and file formats can be imported and analyzed in ATLAS.ti Web, Windows, and Mac.

What are content sources?

Content sources are the documents, files, and other materials that you add to an ATLAS.ti project for analysis.

Depending on your research project, content sources may include:

• interview transcripts
• focus group transcripts
• survey responses
• field notes
• observation notes
• journal articles
• books and reports
• documents created directly in ATLAS.ti
• images
• audio recordings
• video recordings
• social media content

The content types available depend on whether you are using ATLAS.ti Web or ATLAS.ti Desktop.

Common qualitative research data sources

Interviews

Interviews are conversations between a researcher and one or more participants. Researchers usually analyze interview transcripts as text documents or PDFs.

Focus groups

Focus groups involve several participants discussing a topic, product, experience, or research question. These discussions are often transcribed and analyzed as text documents.

Surveys

Survey data is often used when researchers want to analyze open-ended responses. In ATLAS.ti Web, CSV files can be imported, which is useful for working with structured text-based data such as survey responses.

Field notes and observations

Field notes and observation notes describe or reflect on events, research settings, or fieldwork experiences. These are usually imported as text documents or PDFs.

Literature and digital content

Researchers may analyze journal articles, books, reports, policy documents, websites, and other written or digital materials.

Images, audio, and video

Images, audio, and video can be analyzed in ATLAS.ti Desktop. These content types are not currently supported in ATLAS.ti Web.

Supported content types in ATLAS.ti Web

ATLAS.ti Web supports text-based qualitative analysis in the browser.

You can add:

• Word documents
• PDF documents
• CSV files

When adding PDFs, you may also have the option to convert the file as text if needed.

ATLAS.ti Web is suitable for working with:

• interview transcripts
• focus group transcripts
• survey responses
• field notes
• literature reviews
• reports
• other text-based qualitative data

ATLAS.ti Web does not currently support importing:

• image files
• audio files
• video files
• geo data
• reference manager data
• social media content

Supported content types in ATLAS.ti Desktop

ATLAS.ti Desktop includes ATLAS.ti Windows and ATLAS.ti Mac. Desktop supports a broader range of content types than ATLAS.ti Web.

You can work with:

• text documents
• PDF documents
• spreadsheet data
• survey data
• images
• audio recordings
• video recordings
• geo data
• reference manager imports
• social media content imports

This allows researchers to combine text, visual, audio, video, and other data sources within the same project.

Supported file formats in ATLAS.ti Desktop

Textual documents

Common uses include:

• interview transcripts
• focus group transcripts
• field notes
• journal articles
• reports
• literature review sources

PDF files (Text and Graphic)

• PDF files preserve the original document layout. ATLAS.ti displays PDF annotations, but they cannot be edited.
• For text analysis, use text-based PDFs, not image-based PDFs. Text PDFs support searching, coding, and text retrieval. If you scan a document, apply OCR (Optical Character Recognition) to make the text searchable.
• When retrieving coded text from a PDF, the original layout may not be preserved, as PDF is designed for layout display rather than text processing.
• The following file types will be transformed into PDF files, when adding them to an ATLAS.ti project:
  • Ebooks (.mobi)
  • Excel (.xls and .xlsx) and Libre Office Calc (.ods) spreadsheets
  • Powerpoint (.ppt and .pptx)
  • Libre Office Impress (.odp) presentations
  • Visio (.vsd and .vsdx) and Libre Office Draw (.odg) documents

Spreadsheet and survey data

The survey import option allows you to import data via an Excel spreadsheet (.xls or .xlsx files). Its main purpose is to support the analysis of open-ended questions. However, this option can also be used for other case-based data that can easily be prepared in form of an Excel table.

Images

• Supported graphic file formats are: bmp, gif, jpeg, jpg, png, tif and tiff.
• Size recommendation: Digital cameras and scanners often create images with a resolution that significantly exceeds the resolution of your screen. When preparing a graphic file for use with ATLAS.ti, use image-processing software to reduce the size so that the graphics are comfortably displayed on your computer screen. ATLAS.ti does resize the images if they are too big. But this requires additional computer resources and unnecessarily uses space on your computer hard disk.

Audio files

ATLAS.ti Desktop supports audio analysis.

• Supported audio file formats are: aac, m4a, mp3, mp4, wav.
• For audio files, our recommendation is to use *.mp3 files with AAC audio

Common uses include:

• recorded interviews
• focus groups
• oral histories
• recorded observations

Video files

ATLAS.ti Desktop supports video analysis.

• Supported video file formats are; 3g2, 3gp, 3gp2, 3gpp, asf, avi, m4v, mov, mp4, wmv
• For video files, our recommendation is to use *.mp4 file with AAC audio and H.264 video.

Common uses include:

• recorded interviews
• classroom observations
• presentations
• recorded events
• media analysis

Geo data, reference manager imports, and social media content

ATLAS.ti Desktop also supports additional import options, including geo data, reference manager imports, and social media content imports.

These options are useful for projects that include location-based data, literature review workflows, or online/social media data.

Combining different content types

In ATLAS.ti Desktop, you can combine multiple data types in one project.

For example, a project may include:

• interview transcripts
• survey responses
• field notes
• journal articles
• images
• audio recordings
• video recordings

In ATLAS.ti Web, projects focus on supported text-based content, including Word documents, PDFs, CSV files, and documents created directly in the browser.

Tips for preparing data

Before importing data into ATLAS.ti:

• check whether the file type is supported on your platform
• use clear and descriptive file names
• organize your files before importing them
• use CSV files for structured text-based data such as survey responses
• use ATLAS.ti Desktop if your project includes images, audio, video, geo data, reference manager data, or social media imports
• check whether scanned PDFs contain searchable text

Good preparation can make coding, retrieval, reporting, and project organization easier.

Common issues and mistakes

• Expecting Web and Desktop to support the same content types
  • ATLAS.ti Desktop supports more content types than ATLAS.ti Web. If your project includes images, audio, video, geo data, reference manager imports, or social media content, use ATLAS.ti Desktop.
• Expecting image, audio, or video support in ATLAS.ti Web
  • ATLAS.ti Web does not currently support importing image, audio, or video files.
• Forgetting that Web supports CSV files
  • CSV files can be added in ATLAS.ti Web and are useful for structured text-based data such as survey responses.
• Importing unsupported file formats
  • If a file cannot be imported, check whether the file format is supported by the ATLAS.ti platform you are using.
• Using scanned PDFs without searchable text
  • Some scanned PDFs contain image-based text. If the text is not searchable, OCR may be needed before importing or analyzing the file.
• Importing very large multimedia files into Desktop
  • Large audio or video files may take longer to import, process, back up, or transfer.

When to contact support

Contact ATLAS.ti Support if:

• you are unsure whether a file type is supported
• a supported file format cannot be imported
• imported content appears incomplete
• a CSV file does not import as expected
• multimedia files do not play correctly in Desktop
• documents fail to open
• imported content behaves differently than expected

When contacting support, include:

• your platform: Web, Windows, or Mac
• your ATLAS.ti version if using Desktop
• the file format you are trying to import
• screenshots or error messages
• details about the import process