Frequently Asked Questions About Text Analysis

Text analysis encompasses lots of techniques for analyzing data stored as text. This article lists some of the most frequently asked questions (FAQ) about Text Analysis and the various Displayr features supporting this. For a more detailed review of these features, see Finding the Best Text Analysis for Your Data.

Questions:

• What is Text Categorization?
• How do I enable AI for Text Categorization?
• How do I load data for Text Analysis?
• How do I use AI to discover themes in my text data?
• How can I automatically classify responses into themes?
• Can I edit AI-created themes?
• Can I create my own themes?
• Can I edit how the AI has classified responses?
• Can the AI reclassify responses that have already been classified?
• Can I classify responses into themes manually?
• Can I delete themes?
• Do I have to categorize all responses in one go, or can I come back and continue work later?
• Can I add more data to my Text Categorization later on?
• Can I use the same themes and classification on other data?
• Can I move Text Categorization into Displayr from another tool?
• How do I present my classified data?
• Do you have Word Clouds?
• How do I combine categorical (non-text) data with new themes and classifications (back coding)?
• Can I do qualitative analysis in Displayr?
• Can I keep numbered theme codes instead of updating to triple-letter theme codes?

What is Text Categorization?

In Displayr, we talk about Text Categorization as an umbrella term that covers all our functions that allow you to go from unstructured text data to structured data (categorized, or classified, into themes).  

How do I enable AI for Text Categorization?

Before you can use any AI-powered features in Displayr, you need to accept the associated terms and conditions. Click your avatar icon (top right), select Account Settings, and on the General tab, scroll down to the Displayr AI section. Change the drop-down to Enabled. A dialog will pop up with a link to the terms and conditions, allowing you to accept or decline them.

How do I load data for Text Analysis?

In the Data Sources pane, click + Add Data (or just the + icon) to bring up the data importing dialog.  Select where your data is (in the example below, it's just a simple data file, e.g., a .sav or .csv), and Displayr will load it into your document.

For more details, see How to Import Data into Displayr.

How do I use AI to discover themes in my text data?

Under Data Sources, select the text variable you want to classify, then hover and click + > Text Categorization.

• If you want to classify responses into multiple themes, select Multiple themes and click Start.
• If you want to classify responses into a single theme, then select Only one theme and click Start.

The text categorization dialog will open. Click Create, and Displayr's AI will start working out what themes you have in your data.  You can set the number of themes Displayr will create - the default is 10.

How can I automatically classify responses into themes?

Once you have some themes, in the Text Categorization module, click Classify, and the AI will work out which responses match which themes.

Can I edit AI-created themes?

Right-click any theme and select Rename or press F2 on your keyboard to change the theme. The AI will take changes into consideration when classifying new responses to that theme. See the GIF below for an example of how to rename an AI-created theme.

Can I create my own themes?

To create your own theme, in the Themes section, click + Add New Theme, enter the label, and hit Enter.

Or select a text response from the right side and drag it into the Themes section, and give the new theme a label.

Can I edit how the AI has classified responses?

Classified responses can be edited in a few different ways. First, select the text response from the Responses section, and then:

• To Add to a theme:
  • Hover and click Manually classify, and either type the triple letters that correspond to the theme and hit enter,
  • Hover and click Manually classify and select a theme from the list, or
  • Drag and drop onto a theme on the left side.
• To Remove from a theme, click on the triple letters that correspond to a theme and click the X next to the theme's label.

Can the AI reclassify responses that have already been classified?

In the Themes filter dropdown, select a theme where you want the AI to reclassify the responses. 

1. OPTIONAL: Add a new theme and/or rename the original theme.
2. OPTIONAL: Select any text response(s) from the right that you want to remove from the current theme(s) to help train the AI. You can hold down the shift or ctrl key to select multiple text responses.
   1. Drag and drop the selected responses you want to reclassify to Unclassified in the Themes section, or
   2. Click on the triple letters that correspond to a theme and click the X next to the theme's label.
3. Remove the selected theme from the Themes filter at the top.
4. Click Classify to run the AI over the unclassified responses.

Note, by default, when you manually classify a text response, it will be "locked" from automatic classification. You can, however, manually unlock a response by clicking the adjacent lock icon. This will then allow this response to be classified by any automatic algorithm.

Can I classify responses into themes manually?

In the Themes filter in the Responses section, select the theme you want to review or Unclassified for any responses the AI has been unable to classify. Select one or more text responses in the Responses section, and then:

• To Add to a theme:
  • Hover and click Manually classify, and either type the triple letters that correspond to the theme and hit enter,
  • Hover and click Manually classify and select a theme from the list, or
  • Drag and drop onto a theme on the left side.
• To Remove from a theme, click on the triple letters that correspond to a theme and click the X next to the theme's label.

Can I delete themes?

Right-click any theme and select Delete (Del), or select the theme and click the delete button on your keyboard. Any responses classified to that theme will be removed from it and placed back in the unclassified responses.

You can also right-click on a theme and select Delete and Reclassify as. This will bring up a dialog where you can select which existing theme you would like to move the responses to.

Do I have to categorize all responses in one go, or can I come back and continue work later?

You can definitely take a break! Hit Save when you're done for the moment. This will generate a new variable set in your Data Sources view that holds the classification for each case in your data file. To continue your classification, select this categorized variable (not the text variable!), and in Properties  under Data > Attributes, click Text Categorization.

Can I add more data to my Text Categorization later on?

Yes. If you're currently working on a data set where you know you'll get more data later, then all you need to do is update the existing data set. The additional data in any variables you've already classified will then automatically be available in the Text Categorization module for you to work with. For more on updating your data set, see How to Update a Data Set in Displayr.

Can I use the same themes and classification on other data?

Yes. If you are reusing your already-created themes on other text variables in the same document, there are options to reuse via the menus. Alternatively, you can export your classification and import it into the categorization tool to reuse in the same or a separate document. More details on the two methods:

1. To reuse via the menus: Select the text variable to classify under Data Sources, hover, and select + > Text Categorization. You can read about the two different options here. Select the Reuse Existing Categorization tab and choose how you want to reuse the classification, either:
   • Click Reuse by sharing - any changes you make to the classification will flow through to all other variable sets that share this classification.
   • Click Reuse by duplicating - this essentially copies the classification to the new text variable so that any changes you make to the classification will NOT apply to the other variable sets that use it.
2. To reuse by exporting: In the Text Categorization Module, you can use the Export button to create and save a .QCodes file. When classifying any other variable set, in any Displayr document, you can use the Import button to use the same themes and classification for that data.

Can I move Text Categorization into Displayr from another tool?

Yes, that's possible. It's even OK if you've only classified a portion of the responses; missing values are allowed in the data. You will first need to export the data from your other tool, and if necessary, merge that in with the data set you are using for your report. Then, you can use the Create QCodes File feature to export a file that maps the responses to categories, and import those into the Text Categorization module. See Create QCodes File in our technical reference for detailed steps and data requirements.

How do I present my classified data?

Displayr is a fully-fledged data app and dashboard-building tool, so there's a wide range of ways to do that. The easiest way is just to drag your classified variable set (the one with the suffix "- Categorized" if it hasn't been renamed) from the Data Sources pane onto the Page to create a table, and then convert that to a visualization.

See How to Create a Bar Chart for more on bar charts, which is just one of dozens of chart types available in Displayr.

Do you have Word Clouds?

To show a word cloud, drag a text variable from the Data Sources pane onto the Page, then from Properties , click the Visualization selector. Next, click the Text Analysis group, and then Word Cloud. The text data in the table on the page will automatically be converted to a Word Cloud. You can work with the text directly in the Word Cloud, e.g., drag off themes that you want to remove from the final version.

For more on this, see How to Create a Word Cloud

How do I combine categorical data with my text data using the same, or possibly more, categories (known as back coding)?

An example of this would be classifying an "Other" response from a survey back into the main question. You can do this in our Text Categorization module:

1. Select the relevant text variable(s) to classify under Data Sources, hover, and click + > Text Categorization.
2. Select the appropriate classification type based on the Structure of the categorical variable set you want to use for the categories (i.e., Multiple themes for Binary-Multi sets and Single theme for Nominal).
3. Click Inputs and Back Coding in the module that pops up.
4. In the Categorization Input dialog and the drop-down Corresponding back coding variables, select the variable set you want to combine the classified responses with, then click OK.

For further details about back coding, see How to Back Code Variables in Displayr.

Can I do qualitative analysis in Displayr?

Displayr is, first and foremost, a tool for quantitative analysis. However, you can use Displayr's general AI tools to refine and work with your text data before you start classifying it into themes.

Select a text variable under Data Sources, hover, and click the + > Custom Code > AI > Text.

This feature allows you to specify your own prompt and will give you a new text variable that you can use in further functions. For example, you can prompt the AI to:

1. Summarize responses (particularly useful if you're working with lengthy interview transcriptions).

2. Pull out a set of keywords or phrases.

3. Extract particularly salient quotes.

The output here, really, is up to how you write the AI prompt. Once done, the generated variable(s) can be used in all other analyses (including AI text classification) in Displayr.

Can I keep numbered theme codes instead of updating to triple-letter theme codes?

Before 16 June 2025, themes were assigned a number when creating them during the text categorization process:

Now, themes are assigned a "triple letter" code instead of numbers. These letters represent the first three letters of the theme, and include numbers if more than one theme starts with the same first three letters.

Existing code frames (i.e., code frames that were created before 16 June 2025) will retain their numeric code values unless new themes are added or you change any aspect of a theme (e.g., rename). At that point, any theme that has been edited or added will receive a triple-letter code.

If you prefer to keep numeric code values to aid with manual classification, you will want to include the numeric value in the theme label.

1. In the text categorization interface, where you have numeric codes assigned to themes, click Edit.
2. Copy the text shown in the Edit window and paste it into Excel.
3. Insert a column with the numeric values in front of the text. For example, Column A below:
4. Using the concatenate formula in Excel, concatenate the first and second columns. For example:
5. Copy the concatenated text and paste it back into the Edit Themes window in Displayr.
6. Click OK.
7. You can then search using the numeric values when classifying text responses manually.
8. Once you have completed your text categorization, you will want to remove the numeric codes to keep them from appearing in the final variable set's labels. Click Edit.
9. Remove the numeric codes from the front of the theme labels in the Edit Themes window.
10. Click OK.

Next

Finding the Best Text Analysis for Your Data