how do you construct a correlation matrix in APA format in Microsoft Word 2007

June 14, 2008 1:12 PM

how do you construct a correlation matrix in APA format in Microsoft Word 2007 without killing yourself?

I have 12 variables, and I need to construct a matrix of correlations preferably in portrait orientation. I have spent hours on this, and I still can't get my table to look like it should.

Each cell with correlation value should hold at least 5 characters. Is there a tool out there that would help me do that? APA came out with a plug-in, but it doesn't work with MS 2007, which is what I have. Please help!

posted by esolo to Education (5 answers total)

Best answer: I haven't done anything with APA myself, but I have put correlation matrices into published documents in the past; 12x12 may fit portrait (if the font is small enough), but why bother? Orient the page it into landscape, and then use Excel to populate your matrix. Excel can do a preliminary formatting of cell contents, particularly in terms of decimals.

Copy in Excel, paste into the Word document on the page where you need it.

Select the table in the Word document, then 'Table -> Autofit -> Autofit to Window' and it should be fine.

Generally in these cases after I've got it fit into place (with the appropriate identifying entry underneath for the index of tables) is select then resize, increasing font until it just fits. Start out with 8pt and work up from there.
posted by Mutant at 1:40 PM on June 14, 2008 [1 favorite]

I made a quick mock-up in Latex following a template I found here. Latex is a somewhat difficult-to-use language for typesetting that tends to do what you intend it to do pretty well, once you get over the learning curve. The quality of output is very high as well-- considerably better than that image-drop site allows. If this fits your requirements, let me know, and I can post the ugly code and instructions in this thread.
posted by Maxwell_Smart at 2:47 PM on June 14, 2008

Response by poster: Thanks so much for these! I used the Excel suggestion and it worked wonders!!! I can't believe i haven't thought of this myself.

Maxwell - your template sounds fantastic - just a little too techie for me. ;)
posted by esolo at 2:54 PM on June 14, 2008

I also do Paste Special from SPSS.
posted by k8t at 10:37 PM on June 14, 2008

Esolo, for long-term, though,you're gonna want latex if you're trying to display data... it's the standard for most journals, etc.
posted by paultopia at 11:21 AM on June 15, 2008