Verbatim Coding is a valuable way to organize responses to open-ended questions. By labeling and categorizing insightful comments from respondents using codes, you can save time by efficiently identifying common themes within your data set.

Expecting responses in another language? Skipper can translate verbatims for you! Learn more about Verbatim Skipper Translate.

In This Article

• 1. Accessing Verbatim Coding
• 2. Creating Codes
• 3. Managing Codebooks and Codes
• 4. Showing and Hiding Coding Tools
• 5. Exporting Verbatim Responses
• Skipper Autocode

1. Accessing Verbatim Coding

1. From the Results page, click the verbatims icon below the header, or the verbatims icon on the right side of a question header. The icon shows the number of verbatim responses and appears only on question types that collect comments (open-end, and multiple- or single-choice questions with comments) when at least one comment exists.
2. Click the Coding icon in the left menu.

2. Creating Codes

There are multiple ways to create and add codes to open-ended questions. First, build out your code list by creating a codebook and adding codes within the codebook.

With the Coding pane open in the left menu:

1. Click Add a new codebook.
2. Type in the overarching category, and click Ok or press the enter key.
3. Click Add a new code, with the new codebook open.
4. Type or paste the code name, and press the enter key or click Ok. Codes can now be added to any verbatim response within the stats page.

💡 Tip: You can create multiple codes at once by pasting several lines from another text field or document. Pasting into Add a new code creates one code per line. Pasting into Add a new codebook uses the first line as the codebook name and the remaining lines as codes—so if you paste a bare list of codes into the codebook field, the first item becomes the codebook name rather than a code.

Add codes to individual responses:

With the Coding pane open in the left menu:

1. Click + add code within any given response.
2. Type the label for your code.
3. Select the Create: [your text] option or press enter. Your code will populate as a list containing both the name of the code and the number of times it has been assigned to a comment.

⚠️ Note: When you create a code without first creating a codebook to hold it, the system automatically creates one for you called Default codebook. Click the folder icon or title—or the chevron toggle—to expand or hide the codes within each codebook.

Finally, once a verbatim codebook has been created, you can add codes by dragging and dropping.

To code a single response:

1. Click, drag, and drop a code onto an individual response on the screen.

To bulk-add codes to multiple responses:

1. Type keywords into the search bar, and press enter to search for comments matching your parameters.
2. With the filtered results in place, drag the code from the codebook onto the comments header strip at the top of the comment list—it reads Drag the code here to apply to multiple comments.
3. Click All comments on this page: Apply to [N] or All comments found: Apply to [N]. Click Cancel to back out without applying.

3. Managing Codebooks and Codes

Managing codebooks:

1. Click the gear button to the right of a codebook.
2. Select the appropriate option:
   • Rename the codebook
   • Clone codebook
   • Copy codebook structure — appears only when the codebook contains codes
   • Apply codebook [to Q#] and Run guided autocode [on Q#] — appear when Skipper autocoding is enabled for your account
   • Delete codebook and codes from all reports — reads simply Delete codebook when the codebook is empty

Managing codes:

1. Click the gear button to the right of an individual code.
2. Select the appropriate option:
   • Remove code from [N] comments on page — appears only when the code is assigned to comments on the current page
   • Rename the code
   • Assign to multiple comments
   • Remove code from all [N] found comments
   • Delete code itself from all reports
3. Drag and drop codes into other codebooks to reassign a code to another codebook. If a code with the same name already exists in the destination codebook, you'll be prompted to Cancel or Merge codes.

⚠️ Note: Renaming or deleting a codebook or code that is used elsewhere triggers a warning: This codebook or its codes is used in [N] reports. They will also be affected.

4. Showing and Hiding Coding Tools

1. Click the tag icon in the comments header strip—its tooltip reads Show/Hide all tools. This shows or hides the coding toolbox on every comment, so you can switch between a clean reading view and a coding view.

The tag icon sits alongside a traits toggle and a tools menu in the same header strip.

5. Exporting Verbatim Responses

There are two ways to download verbatim responses along with their codebook and codes: by individual question, or for the entire survey.

To export by individual question:

1. Scroll to an open-ended question in your quant report.
2. Click the Export icon to open the drop-down menu.
3. Select the desired report:
   • Download all verbatim (CSV)
   • Download all verbatim with codes (CSV)

⚠️ Note: Per-question export options are not available to survey guests, and the with codes option is not offered for custom questions.

To export verbatims for the entire survey:

1. Open the Verbatim page of your stats page.
2. Click the Export icon in the left menu to open the Export Options pane, then select any desired export.

⚠️ Note: To export verbatim responses with their codebook and codes, choose Response level data. Codebook and code columns are included in Excel (Numerically coded with labels), Excel (Answer text), CSV, SPSS, and JMP exports.

Skipper Autocode

Use Skipper Autocode to enhance the analysis of verbatim responses with codebooks and coding.

• AI-powered theme detection: Automatically detect themes in responses and code them accordingly, saving time and improving accuracy.
• Codebook creation: Create codebooks with specific names for the categories you want to explore, facilitating organized and targeted analysis.
• Verbatim coding integration: Work seamlessly through the Verbatim Coding pane to analyze and create codebooks.
• Customization options: Manually create or use existing codebooks, providing flexibility in how coding is applied.
• Code editing: Edit, rename, assign, or delete codes as needed, ensuring the coding remains relevant and accurate.
• Category refinement: Expand and refine existing codebooks, enhancing the depth of analysis.

Skipper autocoding runs from the Coding pane itself. When it's enabled for your account, the pane includes a Skipper autocoding block with a question picker and an action dropdown:

• Run autocode
• Apply codebook
• Run guided autocode

You can also drag a codebook onto the drop zones in the comments header to apply a codebook or run guided autocode directly.

Learn more about Skipper Autocode!

Related Articles

• Verbatim Skipper Translate
• Skipper Autocode Overview
• How to Export Data Presentations
• How to Analyze Open-Ended Responses