Column locations in ATUS-X extracts

Hi, do column locations in the extract codebooks refer to the locations of the variables in the extract OR in the original raw data? That is, if I ever needed to reproduce the extract data “by hand” from the raw ATUS data, could I do it using the column locations provided in the extract codebooks? thanks much, Sanjiv

In the codebook file, provided with IPUMS extracts, the “column” indicate variable locations in the fixed-width data file extracted from IPUMS and not the original raw data. This information is useful when converting the fixed-width data file provided by IPUMS into a usable file format within your preferred statistical software. If you want to reproduce an IPUMS data extract with the raw ATUS data, you will need to use the codebook and documentation provided with the ATUS raw data.