Second window not opening when appending using files to master file

[Elizabeth Willard]

Hello! I'm a very new STATA user, usually use SAS or R, so feel free to put any answer like you are teaching a child. I am trying to append several using files to one master file. When I was shown how to do this, a second window automatically opened while the master file remained in the original window with all of the commands. When I tried to do this, a second window would not open. I have tried to alter the settings, but am not having any luck. I am working with version SE 15, if that makes a difference. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

[Mike Lacy]

With Stata 15 (which I also use), I can't think of how a second window would open as you describe being shown. (This sounds like what would happen with the "frames" feature of newer versions of Stata.) In any event, the data would not appear in the same window as the commands, but rather could be viewed in the Data Editor window of the current instance of Stata rather than the Command or Results window. I presume you are doing something like this:

use master.dta
append using file1.dta file2.dta file3.dta  etc.
browse

If this were done, the contents of each file*.dta would be put at the "bottom" of the master data set, in the order in which that file was listed. The -browse- command will open the Data Editor and enable you to view this combined data set.

Hope this helps--I appreciate the difficulty of working outside your preferred program. If this doesn't fit or help, showing us the commands you used would facilitate a better explanation or diagnosis.