Atlas.ti and Nvivo

I have absolutely fallen in love! Is it wrong to say that about a software product. I have been spending so much time with Atlas.ti working on my project that I'm sure my husband thinks I'm cheating on him with it.



I gave Nvivo a try and thought for sure it was going to be my product of choice because let's face it out of the box it is much more modern looking and seems like it would be easier to use. I was able to install it on my computer looked through the quick start guide and opened the program to discover that it did not install properly on my computer and wouldn't open. I tried a couple more time on that computer by uninstalling and reinstalling but was still unable to make any headway even when I tried another computer.



So I went back to Atlas.ti and started playing with one of our classroom transcripts. After just a few minutes I had most of it figured out and quit playing. I pulled out the real stuff and got to work. I ran into a few problems though. The first was my data. Since I was working with web pages I had simply saved them as html files and then pulled them into Atlas.ti. Although Atlas.ti allowed me to do that it wasn't a pretty picture and it made coding the content harder. So after many hours of cleaning and stripping out the html I began coding and discovered my second problem. The trial version of the program only allows you to save 100 quotes and less codes. Needless to say I made it work by transfering my info over to excel but I was hooked and I really want to save up my money to buy a copy.