Converting projects between Windows and Mac

NVivo on Windows and Mac are separate software applications with different project file formats (file extensions: .nvp for Windows and .nvpx for Mac). You can convert projects between the platforms however there are limitations such that, while you may be able to successfully convert a project on a once-off basis (e.g. changing to a new computer) it is not recommended that you move projects between platforms as part of an ongoing workflow.

NVivo Collaboration Server uses Windows-format project files (NVivo Collaboration Server is compatible with Windows only).

If you do work with a project across platforms we recommend making the project's 'master' version in Windows, and import all data files there. This is because NVivo Windows has the full NVivo feature set—NVivo Mac has a subset of these.

Differences between Windows and Mac projects

There are important differences between Windows and Mac projects that you should be aware of before converting:

• Mac projects can be up to 512 GB compared to 10 GB for Windows, so Mac projects over 10 GB cannot be converted.

• NVivo Mac does not have all of the features of the Windows version. Project items created by features not present in Mac are hidden in projects converted to and opened in NVivo Mac.

  IMPORTANT  Unsupported items are not deleted when a project is converted to Mac—only hidden. If the project is converted back into Windows format the items appear again. Therefore, unless you are confident the project will never return to Windows, do not to delete items that may depend on Windows functions e.g. empty folders that might contain framework matrices, or queries dependent on dynamic sets.

The following features are not present in NVivo Mac:

• Compound and group queries
• See-also links
• Annotations in audios, videos, pictures and datasets
• Dynamic sets
• Framework matrices
• Sentiment coding
• Relationship coding
• Social network analysis
• Cluster analysis
• Project maps
• Reports

Converting a Windows project to Mac

To convert a project from Windows to Mac, open it in NVivo Windows and make a copy of it in Mac format.

IMPORTANT  NVivo for Mac does not have all of the features in NVivo for Windows, so you may lose elements of your work in this conversion e.g. NVivo Mac doesn't support see-also links or compound or group queries.

Converting a Mac project to Windows

You can open an NVivo project created on the Mac platform (.nvpx) in Windows and it will be converted into the Windows format (.nvp) for you. Alternatively, you can import the content from an NVivo for Mac project into an NVivo for Windows project.

Projects created on the Mac platform have a larger maximum file size than Windows projects. If the size of your Mac project exceeds 10GB you may not be able to open it in NVivo for Windows.

If you want to convert an NVivo (Release 1.2) for Mac project to the NVivo (Release 1.2) for Windows format, you must first open (and upgrade) the project using NVivo (Release 1.2) for Mac, then convert the project using NVivo (Release 1.2) for Windows.

CAUTION   If a file in the original NVivo for Windows project contained 'see-also' links, then do not edit the file in NVivo for Mac—otherwise, all 'see-also' links in the file will be permanently deleted.

• If you code documents that contain embedded images or complex tables in NVivo for Mac, and then open the project in NVivo for Windows, you may experience problems when you open the code. You can avoid these problems by converting documents with embedded images or complex tables into PDF files before importing them into your project.

Both ways

• There may be slight differences between NVivo for Windows and NVivo for Mac in the coding coverage percentages displayed. This is due to differences in the handling of blank spaces when calculating coding coverage.

• File links must be updated each time you convert a project—refer to Update file links in converted projects for more information.

• Project conversion can take a long time depending on the number of documents and PDFs and the amount of coding.

Why do Coding Comparison queries produce different results in a converted project?

If a converted project has a Coding Comparison query, you may find that when you run the query in NVivo for Mac, you get different results than if you ran the query in NVivo for Windows.

Coding Comparison queries in NVivo for Mac currently support documents, memos, and externals as file types. Coding Comparison queries in NVivo for Windows support additional file types—for example, pictures, audio and video. If the Coding Comparison query criteria is defined using All Files, then the query results may be different in NVivo for Mac.

NVivo for Windows supports additional code types (relationships and sentiment codes) that are not available in NVivo for Mac. If the original Coding Comparison query criteria is defined using All Codes, then the query results may be different in NVivo for Mac.

We recommend that you create new queries for your converted project within NVivo for Mac. Queries.

Update file links in converted projects

The Windows and Mac operating systems use different formats for file links. This means that if you convert your Windows project and open it in NVivo for Mac (or vice versa), you will not be able to access linked files unless you update the file links.

Within NVivo you can create links to files outside your project in the following ways:

• External files that link to a file
• Audio and video files with media files stored outside the project (not embedded)
• Hyperlinks within documents and memos to files

When you convert a project from Windows to Mac format, you will need to update the file links (in the item's properties) if you want to access the files.