Datanomics

Working with Stata’s do file editor is one of the most painful exercises. The lack of syntax highlighting means a large do file is basically unreadable. Enter TextMate. One can edit and send .do files to Stata directly from a Textmate project. If you have the standard Stata Intercooled, then download and install the Stata bundle. Next, go to “Bundles –> Bundle Editor –> Show Bundle Editor” and find the Stata bundle. Select the “Send File to Stata” command and edit the first line “StataMP” to read “Stata.” Do the same with the “Send Selection to Stata.” Now open Stata, cd to the project directory, open your do file in TextMate and start editing. Bask in the glory that is syntax-highlighting.