*(B) Does SPSS have a bug? String variables will not right align in the data editor. *(A) Posted by Raynald Levesque to SPSSX-L on 2002/11/21. * Say a variable str1 is an A8 string variable. * When the value assigned to str1 has less than 8 characters, SPSS pads the right of the string with blanks. This is why when the "right align" feature of the variable is set, the data editor does not *appear* to be right aligned. In fact cells content are right aligned but blanks at the end produce the wrong impression. This is easy to fix as is shown by the following syntax: DATA LIST LIST /str1(A8). BEGIN DATA a ab abc abcd abcde abcdef abcdefg abcdefgh END DATA. LIST. COMPUTE str1=LPAD(RTRIM(str1),8). VARIABLE ALIGNMENT str1(RIGHT). EXECUTE. *The compute statement removes any trailing blanks and replaces them by beginning blanks. That way, data are right align in the data viewer.