About sources

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In NVivo, 'sources' is the collective term for your research materials—anything from 'primary' materials such as documents, PDFs or videos, to memos that record your ideas and insights. You can import or create sources at any stage of your project.

In this topic

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Understand the source types available for this release

In this release of NVivo 10 for Mac, you can work with

• Documents and memos (doc, docx, rtf, txt or odt)—you can create or import documents, code the content and apply basic formatting in these text-based sources.
• PDFs—you can import PDFs and code the text content. In this release, you cannot code images or regions.
• Audio or Video—you can import audio and video files in a variety of formats and work with them in NVivo. You can also create synchronized transcripts. In this release, you cannot work with YouTube videos.
• Datasets—you can import Excel spreadsheets (xls or xlsx). Refer to About dataset sources for more information.
• Externals—you can create externals to represent source materials that you cannot import.

In this release, you cannot work with:

• Picture sources—as a work-around you can create a document source and paste the picture into it.

• Framework matrices

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Understand source folders

When you create a new project, you will see the following ready-made folders for your sources:

• Internals
• Externals
• Memos

You can store your primary research materials in the Internals or Externals folders:

• Internals are primary research materials that you import or create in NVivo.
• Externals are proxies that represent research materials that you cannot import such as books or manuscripts—you can create an external source and summarize the content of the item. Refer to Create externals for sources you cannot import for more information.

You can store secondary research materials in the Memos folders. Memos record your observations and insights about the material you are analyzing. You can import memos or create them within NVivo. Refer to About memos for more information.

You can create your own folders under each of these high-level folders. For example, under Internals you could create separate folders for Stage 1 Interviews and Stage 2 Interviews. You cannot delete or rename the high-level folders (or create your own folders at this level).

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Understand the different source types

The Internals folder in your NVivo project can contain different types of sources - documents, PDFs, and audio/video sources.

You can create documents and memos directly in NVivo—other source types are usually created by importing source materials into NVivo, as described in the following table:

Source	Description	Examples
Documents	Documents can be created in NVivo or created by importing Microsoft Word documents or text files. You can also import files in the OpenDocument format. Documents can be edited in NVivo—for example, you can apply paragraph styles, format text and insert images. Refer to About documents and PDF sources for more information.	Interview transcripts Field notes
PDFs	PDF sources are created by importing PDF files. PDF sources can also be created when you import content from web pages that was captured with NCapture. PDFs cannot be edited in NVivo. Refer to About documents and PDF sources for more information.	Journal articles Web pages
Datasets	Datasets contain structured data arranged in records (rows) and fields (columns). They are created by importing Microsoft Excel files. Datasets cannot be edited in NVivo Refer to About dataset sources for more information	Online survey results
Audio and video sources	An audio or video source consists of the media and (optionally) a transcript. They can be created by importing audio or video files. Audio and video transcripts can be created in NVivo or imported from structured text files. Transcripts can be edited in NVivo (the media file cannot be modified).	Recorded interviews or focus group discussions Observational videos
Pictures	This feature is not currently available in NVivo for Mac—for an overview of the features in this release, refer to What's in NVivo 10 for Mac.
Externals	Externals are used to represent source materials that you cannot import into your project.  You can summarize or describe the source materials within the external. Externals are similar to documents, except they are stored in their own folder. Just like documents, you can use standard formatting tools to apply fonts, indents and paragraph styles. Refer to Create externals for sources you cannot import for more information.	You could create an external that represents a physical book or an 8mm film.
Memos	Memos are used to record your insights, observations and interpretations, and can be linked (via a memo link) to a source or node. Memos are similar to documents, except they are stored in their own folder. Just like documents, you can create them in NVivo or create them by importing Microsoft Word documents or text files. Also like documents, you can apply paragraph styles, format text and insert images. Refer to About memos for more information.	Project journal A memo to record why you created a particular node.
Framework matrices	This feature is not currently available in NVivo for Mac—for an overview of the features in this release, refer to What's in NVivo 10 for Mac.

What kinds of files can I import?

You can import source files in the following formats:

 

Source	Formats
Documents and Memos	Microsoft Word Document (docx) Microsoft Word 97 - 2003 Document (doc) Rich text (rtf) Plain text (txt) OpenDocument (odt)
PDFs	PDF (pdf)
Datasets	Microsoft Excel spreadsheet (xlsx) Microsoft Excel 97 - 2003 spreadsheet (xls)
Audio and video	NVivo 10 for Mac allows you to import audio and video files that have been created in a variety of ways—for example, audio or video files that were recorded on your smart phone or files exported from QuickTime on your Mac. Refer to Import audio or video for more information. You can also import transcripts into your audio or video sources—refer to Import audio or video transcripts for more information.

NOTE Picture sources are not available in this release of NVivo 10 for Mac.

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Importing source material from the web

If you want to bring web pages into NVivo, you can use NCapture to collect the web content, and then import it into NVivo.

NCapture is a web browser extension that allows you to gather web content.  The web content you gather is saved to NCapture files (.nvcx) on your computer—you can then import the NCapture files into your project.

You can import web pages and online PDFs.

In this release of NVivo for Mac, you cannot import NCapture files containing:

• Facebook,Twitter and LinkedIn data captured as a dataset source

• YouTube videos captured as a video source (with or without comments)

It is possible to capture a Facebook,Twitter, LinkedIn or YouTube web page as PDF and then import it into NVivo.

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Importing notes from Evernote

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Importing journal articles (and other files) from reference libraries

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Creating case nodes when you import source files

When each source file relates to a particular case (person, place or other entity)—for example, an interview recording or transcript, where you interviewed a particular person—you can create a case node for the source as you import the file.

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Can I import a lot of source files at once?

You can select multiple files and import them into NVivo at the same time (datasets must be imported one-by-one).

When you import more than one source:

• You are not prompted to define the source properties—you can do this later on

• NVivo uses the file name as the name of the source

• All the sources are imported into the same folder

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How to handle source materials that cannot be imported?

If you have digital content in formats that you cannot directly import into NVivo (for example, Microsoft PowerPoint), you may be able to save or export the content to a PDF file which you can import into NVivo as a PDF source. If this is not possible, then you can create an 'external' to represent the source in NVivo.

Similarly, if you have physical source materials that you cannot import into NVivo (for example, a book), you can create an 'external' to represent the item in NVivo.

Refer to Create externals for sources you cannot import.

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Record bibliographical data about your sources

You can record bibliographical details about your sources. For example, you could classify a PDF source as a Journal Article and specify the author and year.

You can classify internals, externals and memos.

Refer to About classifying sources for more information.

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Switch to edit mode to change the content of a source

You can switch to edit mode when:

• You are working with a document, external or memo and want to edit the content

• You are working with an audio or video source and you want to edit the transcript

You cannot switch to edit mode when you are working with a dataset or PDF source.

When you work with a source in edit mode you can:

• Add, delete and change text

• Insert symbols

• Format text

• Insert images  (documents, memos and externals only)

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Related topics

• Bring in your sources and get organized

• Code sources and manage nodes

• Customize the source display