# Is it possible to download data in STATA 13 format? It looks like it's now STATA 14 or 15 and I can't open it.

**URL:** <https://forum.ipums.org/t/is-it-possible-to-download-data-in-stata-13-format-it-looks-like-its-now-stata-14-or-15-and-i-cant-open-it/2197>\
**Category:** General\
**Created:** [March 6, 2018, 12:30pm UTC](https://forum.ipums.org/t/is-it-possible-to-download-data-in-stata-13-format-it-looks-like-its-now-stata-14-or-15-and-i-cant-open-it/2197 "2018-03-06T12:30:00Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![hschwank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a88e57/32.png) [@hschwank](https://forum.ipums.org/u/hschwank)\
**Post date:** [March 6, 2018, 12:30pm UTC](https://forum.ipums.org/t/is-it-possible-to-download-data-in-stata-13-format-it-looks-like-its-now-stata-14-or-15-and-i-cant-open-it/2197/1 "2018-03-06T12:30:00Z")

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Is it possible to download data in STATA 13 format? It looks like it’s now STATA 14 or 15, because I have STATA 13 and I get the error “File usa\_00043.dta is from a more recent version of Stata”. This usually comes up when I try opening data which is saved in STATA 14 or 15. I was able to open IPUMS data with my current version until very recently.

Is there any way to request an older version of the data format?

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**Author:** ![JeffBloem](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/flex019/user_avatar/forum.ipums.org/jeffbloem/32/40_2.png) [@JeffBloem](https://forum.ipums.org/u/JeffBloem)\
**Post date:** [March 7, 2018, 7:07pm UTC](https://forum.ipums.org/t/is-it-possible-to-download-data-in-stata-13-format-it-looks-like-its-now-stata-14-or-15-and-i-cant-open-it/2197/2 "2018-03-07T19:07:00Z")

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This should only occur if you ask the IPUMS data extract system to prepare a .dta file for you. Our server uses a fancy new version of Stata and therefore the .dta file will be too new to open on older versions of Stata. This is not a problem, however, if you download the command .do file and the compressed data .dat file. I have Stata 13 on my computer and it works fine for me. An online video tutorial for how to download, decompress, and read data into Stata is [available here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Orif_kvhkMY&feature=youtu.be).