Note a new patched version 3.8.2 has been released to address the Known Issues listed at the end of the page.

https://github.com/ccbogel/QualCoder/releases/tag/3.8.2

Installation

Windows

You have two options (see attached files at the end of the release page):

• QualCoder_3_8_Win_setup.exe: a Windows installer, will set up QualCoder like any normal app, with entries in the start menu, etc.
• QualCoder_3_8_Win_Portable.exe: A portable binary. Double-click to run and wait for 15 seconds.

On first use of the exe, Windows will ask you to allow to run QualCoder. This is because it is from an unknown publisher. It costs a lot of money to get a trusted publisher certificate - so that will not be possible for the foreseeable future.

MacOS

Attached to the release page you will find:

• QualCoder_3_8_arm64.dmg: App bundle for newer Macs with Apple Silicon (M1 ... M4 processors)

The app bundle is compiled on macOS Sequoia. They might also work on Sonoma and Ventura.

We are currently not able to sign the app bundles, so you will get a warning that QualCoder is from an unregistered developer. You have to manually allow the app to be executed, if your Gatekeeper is active. Follow these steps:

Double-click the downloaded dmg-file.

• Drag QualCoder into the link to your applications.
• Start QualCoder by double-clicking the app within your applications folder. You will get an error that QualCoder is from an unregistered developer. The app will not start.
• Go to Settings -> Privacy and Security -> Scroll down until you see a message stating QualCoder was prevented from starting. Click on "open anyway".
• From now on, QualCoder should start without issues.

Linux Ubuntu / Lubuntu / Mint / ZorinOS / Debian / Arch

This binary should work on the above recent releases of Linux distros, e.g. Linux Mint 22.3, Ubuntu 24.04 etc.
It may work in other distros also. You need t make it executable, via theGUI or using the terminal: chmod +x Qualcoder_3_8_ubuntu

• QualCoder_3_8_ubuntu executable

Other Linux

Fedora has a segmentation fault (software crashes) which is currently not fixed, regarding audio / video coding. Not sure if this issue is still current as has not been able to check this.

Manual install on any operating system mentioned above

For install from source code, download the zip file below and use the instructions in the README file to install on your operating system.

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Changes

Throughout - help now redirects to the new website: https://qualcoder-org.github.io/
This will allow us to gradually add additional pages in other languages.

Shutdown

The Shutdown process has been improved.

Settings

The default project directory is now the location for saving automatic backups.

Coder names, a button to show visibility of other coders, and to add, merge and rename coders.

Artificial intelligence

Improved model access.

View graph

Added button: export image as pdf. Better for scaling.

All coding screens

Sort files by name, date loaded in, case name. Ascending or descending.

Except A/V coding: Coder names, a new button to show visibility of other coders, and to add a new coder.

Code text

Added options to code ONLY within an existing code - for autocode buttons. Right-click on the buttons to get a menu to change the options.

Added button to find and mark (code) speakers by speaker name.

Codes in all files screen

Added options to edit memos, add / remove important flag.

Report codes

If there are no cases in the project. Hide the cases pane, and cases option in the matrix drop-down selection.

Settings

There is a button beside the current coder name, to edit coder names. This also includes merging a coder name into an existing name.

Pseudonymisation

Pseudonyms must be set up before importing documents.

Data de-identification is an important privacy aspect. Data de-identification applies to most qualitative text imports, e.g. from txt, docx and other text files. It does not apply to PDF imports, nor the plain text associated with PDFs. It applies to survey import columns designated as qualitative.

In Manage Files there is a button to open the pseudonymisation screen.
On this screen, enter names that must be replaced with randomised pseudonyms.
The pseudonym file is created within the QualCoder project folder called pseudonyms.json
This json file can be removed and stored separately, or deleted, after all text importing is completed.

Fixed error merging project containing audio and video

Audio and video merging, the associated text files were incorrectly assigned.

Code co-occurrence report

Added option to create a new code from overlapping codes. Right-click on a cell that contains overlapping code to do this.

Charts

Added some cumulative bar charts. Cumulative bar chars of code frequency in files/cases, by code.

Wordcloud now uses the python wordcloud module. Added an option to override existing stopwords for the word cloud, by adding a button to temporarily link to any user chosen stopwords file.

Mark speakers

In Manage Files and Code Text. There is a button (a pin icon) for QualCoder to identify and mark with a code the transcription speakers. The speaker name must begin the sentence, and be in one of several formats described in the tooltips.

Known Issues

• AI "BadRequest" error:
  If you are using GPT 4.1, you might get an error message stating: BadRequestError: Error code: 400 - {'error': {'message': 'Unrecognized request argument supplied: reasoning_effort'.... To resolve this, go to Project > Settings and update your AI profile to the newer "OpenAI GPT 5.2 reasoning". For quicker responses, you can also choose the "no reasoning" variant. If you really want to continue working with GPT 4.1, you must go to the Advanced AI Settings and set "Reasoning" to "default".
  Note: We have already fixed this issue in the binaries below.

• Iramuteq export

Coding report. Export to IRaMuTeQ (iramuteq) format does not work if QualCoder language is set to Spanish or French. Change language setting to English and then export to iramuteq..

• Code Summary Report - code count

The total code count in the codes tree only shows the total count of text codings. Image and A/V codings are not included in the total count. Longstanding error.

• Codes Report

If References is checked, the results output reference title may display as "None". Longstanding error.

• Auto-code exact text

Two substantial issues here:

• Not working correctly by exiting early when multiple files are selected. Solution: select only ONE file in the file selection step, or use QualCoder 3.8.2 version.
• Regex - running coding reports only shows the Regex text used, but not the text found by Regex.
  -- Solution 1. Undo all the regex coded text, upgrade to 3.8.2 version and then re-apply the regex.
  -- Solution 2 is to run an update in Reports > Database Queries using this command, (Note, always make a backup of your project first):
  update code_text set seltext = (select substr(source.fulltext, code_text.pos0 + 1, code_text.pos1-code_text.pos0) from source where code_text.fid=source.id)