1. Opening MAXqda and starting a new project. (Can select from New Project or Existing Project)

a.       Double click the MAXqda icon on the desktop of your computer to open program.

b.      Select Create and Open New Project

c.       Name your project

d.      Click “Save”

e.       MAXqda Desktop will open

2. The MAXqda Desktop

• Menu bar is located directly below the title bar. Menu bar contains pull-down menus for commands.
• Tool bar below menu bar contains buttons for quick access to frequently used commands.
• On the right side of the tool bar is the code bar offering functions for coding text segments.
• Four main windows are located beneath the tool bar:
  • Document System: Contains a list of all your texts and text groups
  • Code System: Contains your codes, i.e. your category system
  • Text Browser: Your working window where you can mark text segments and attach codes, edit text, or write memos.
  • Retrieved Segments: Contains a collection of coded segments, the result of a text retrieval procedure.
• The four windows may be switched on and off independently in three different ways:

  1. Select the Windows option in the menu bar.

  2. Click the buttons in the tool bar

  3. Click the CLOSE (X) button in the upper right corner of a window.

  Windows can also be maximized to full screen by clicking the Maximize button in the upper-right corner of the window.

3. The Document System

The Document System holds all of the text documents of your project. You may add new documents and remove documents whenever you like. You need to create a text group before you can import a text file.

How to create a text group:

• Open the Document system window if it isn't already.
• Point to the Text Groups line and right-click the mouse.
• Select New Text Group from the short cut menu.
• Type in a name for the new text group, for instance "interviews."

Importing Text:

1. Right-click the text group created earlier called "interviews."

2. Select Import Text(s).

3. Select the file "interview1.rtf" located in the MAXqda folder.  Here is what it should look like:

To open and view the text, just double-click the text in the Document System!

4. The Code System

Now, the fun begins! You can code or edit your text. The Code Mode is active by default when a text is opened in the Document System. Click the Edit/Code Mode button to switch off the Code Mode.  When working in the Edit Mode a lot of features already known from word processing programs are available.

A code is a string containing up to 64 characters, which is attached to selected segments of text.

The Code System is shown as a tree structure on the screen, very much like the File Folder which is used in Windows Explorer.

Defining a code is like opening a drawer in which you can put in any number of text segments. The drawer's label, the code name, can later be changed without affecting the contents of the drawer. You can also print the code system or export it.

Creating a code on the highest level

1. Right click the bar Code System
2. Select New Code from the menu and type in the name for your new code. First code will be "media" and the second one "code example"
3. Newly defined codes are always assigned the first place on the list, in the highest level. To define a subcode, click the next higher code with the right mouse button and select New Code from the menu. Right click "media" and add new subcodes "cold-hot" and "simultaneous world."
4. You can drag and drop the codes and subcodes and sort them alphabetically by clicking the menu option Sort Codes at the highest as well as at every other level.

Coding is possible in different way, however, you must always first select the passage of text with the mouse. A code can then be assigned to the selected text in the following three ways:

1. Drag and drop

Click on the selected text with the left mouse and keeping the button pressed, move the mouse pointer to the name of the code in the Code System. Releasing the mouse button then assigns the segment to this code, which you can see in the gray column next to the text in the Text Browser Window.

2. Drop-Down Menu

Right click the mouse on the code in the Code System window to which you want to assign the text. Select Code from the drop-down menu.

3. Coding with the Code and The In-Vivo-Code Buttons

At the top of the Text Browser in the Coding tool bar is a list of the codes last used. Whenever you assign a new code to a text, the code is added to the list. By clicking on the button to the right of this list, you assign the selected text to the code presently in the tool car. This allows you to assign a text segment to a code which has already been named. You can in this way search the text for a certain topic and quickly assign corresponding passages in the text without each time going through the process of selecting a code.

Another way of coding is with the In-Vivo-Coding. If you for example select the word "global village" and then click on the In-Vivo-Coding button in the tool bar, the word "global village" is added to the list of codes as the code for this one-word text segment.

When you want to code a segment of text with the In-Vivo-Coding function, and not only the word itself, code the selected word with this function first. Next select the entire text segment (including the word) and click the Coding button (to the left of the In-Vivo-Coding button). MAXqda expands the coded text automatically.

 

Retrieving Codes Segments

The process of retrieving previously coded segments and collecting them into a list of retrieval results is referred to as text retrieval.

For each activated text, the text segments of the activated codes will be collected in the Retrieved Segments window. All that you need to know to start a retrieval procedure is how text and codes can be activated for retrieval.

Activating Text Documents

As you already know, all your texts and text groups are displayed in the Document System. To activate a particular text, you may choose between 2 alternatives:

1. Click on the text name using the right mouse button. Then select Activate from the short cut menu.

2. Press the CTRL key and click on the text name(s) using the left mouse button.

Now the text is activated and the text name appears in red.

5. Text Search

The Text Search functions allow you to do lexical searches in your text documents. Lexical searches can be down without first coding the material. Thus, text searches are a way of exploring your texts without spending a great deal of time segmenting and coding text.

You can search

• in your text document,
• in your memos,
• in the text passages currently displayed in the Retrieved Segments window, or
• in the currently active texts

To start the text search procedure, click on the menu option Text Search or click on the Search button in the tool bar.

When the dialog box first comes up, the left pane is empty. Click New to enter the word or string (called the "search string") that you want to find. For this example, type "media." You can specify that you want to match the case, or that you want to find only whole words. To do the second, you would click the Find Only Whole Words check box.

Click the Delete button to remove search strings from the list. You can also modify your search strings at any time.

Click the Search button to start the search.