Codebook Generator

Author: Mehedy Hasan
Organisation: ARCED Foundation
Position: Research Assistant

A lightweight Python tool that automatically generates a codebook (Excel file) from survey datasets. Supports both Stata .dta files and Excel .xlsx/.xls files.

Output

The generated codebook contains five columns:

Column	Description
Variable	The variable name in the dataset
Obs	Number of non-missing observations
Miss obs	Number of missing observations
Ques.	The survey question text (variable label)
Label	The variable label/description

Features

• Works on Google Colab — upload and run, no installation needed.
• Also works on local Jupyter notebooks.
• Handles Stata files with variable labels via pyreadstat.
• Handles Excel files via pandas.
• Auto-downloads the output Excel file on Colab.

Quick Start (Google Colab)

1. Open the notebook in Colab: click Open in Colab badge below or upload the .ipynb file manually.
2. Click Runtime > Run all (or press Ctrl+F9).
3. In the Upload cell, click Choose Files and select your .dta or .xlsx file.
4. The codebook is generated and downloaded automatically as codebook.xlsx.

Quick Start (Local Jupyter)

1. Clone this repository:

   git clone https://github.com/mehedy0905/codebook-generator.git
   cd codebook-generator

2. Install dependencies:

   pip install pandas openpyxl pyreadstat

3. Launch Jupyter:

   jupyter notebook codebook_generator.ipynb

4. Run all cells (Kernel > Restart & Run All). The upload cell will prompt you to select a file.

Configuration

In Step 4 of the notebook, you can customise:

Parameter	Default	Options	Description
OUTPUT_NAME	"codebook.xlsx"	any string	Name of the output Excel file
QUES_SOURCE	"label"	"label" or "none"	Controls the Ques. column content

• "label" — Uses the variable label as the question text (recommended for surveys).
• "none" — Leaves the Ques. column blank.

Project Structure

codebook-generator/
├── codebook_generator.ipynb   # Main notebook
├── README.md                  # This file
├── .gitignore                 # Git ignore rules
└── LICENSE                    # MIT License

Requirements

• Python 3.8+
• pandas
• openpyxl
• pyreadstat

All dependencies are auto-installed by the notebook if missing.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for details.

Author

Mehedy Hasan
Research Assistant, ARCED Foundation