#Literate Stata

Literate Stata allows you to save sections of Stata output in a format that can easily be inserted as linked text into a word processor document.

You need to set up a working directory with a subdirectory for logs and a subdirectory for rtf files (your word processing document should be in this directory as well).

In your do file, save each portion of output you want to be included in your wp doc as a separate text log. Designate the start and the end of the output you want to include with the markers *@*lstart and *@*lend.

The program in this ado file (which you can store on your computer following these (pdf) instructions) extracts the bit of the log you want (cleaning up some record-keeping stuff that is automatically included) and saves it as an rtf file with some formatting options which you can customise (values between 0 and 255 for red, green and blue as well as font size).

In a word document you can "Insert text from file" then click the insert drop-down arrow then "Insert as link". This way, every time you run your analysis again, you can go into your word document, select all, and then press F9 to update all the Stata output.

Any changes you made in your analysis will be reflected in your write-up automatically!

Here's an example:

cap log close
log using logs/ex1, text replace
*@*lstart
sysuse auto.dta
dis 5+6
reg mpg weight
*@*lend
cap log close

logs2rtf ,src("logs\") dest("word\") blue(255)

And here's the syntax:

syntax  ,src(string) dest(string) [ red(integer 0) green(integer 0) blue(integer 0) fs(integer 8) ]

src and string are mandatory options to tell stata where to look for your log files and where to save the rtf files, the other options are for formatting.