Comment Coder by Martin

Data & Themes

Upload comments · choose field · manage themes

1 · Upload data

No file loaded

Upload CSV or Excel file Choose data file… 📂

Sheet

2 · Comment column

Select the column that contains comments

Empty comments and dash values are ignored

Filters & order

Show Theme filter

Randomise order when starting coding

Themes

Click theme to select · use below to rename / merge

Save & export

No comments loaded yet

Flagged for review

No comments match the current filters

Assign themes

Use number keys (1–9) · click to toggle

Current comment

Load a file and select a comment column to start coding.

Suggestions

Coding stats

No themes coded yet.

Create themes and start coding to see stats.

Keyboard: 1–9 / Shift+1–9 toggle theme · ←/→ move · U next uncoded · F flag

About Comment Coder by Martin

What this tool does and how to use it

What this tool is for

Comment Coder helps you manually tag open-text survey comments with themes, so you can quantify patterns without losing the nuance of the original wording.

Typical workflow

1. Load a CSV or Excel file with your survey data.
2. Choose the column that contains the free-text comments.
3. Create a set of themes that match your coding framework.
4. Step through comments one by one and apply one or more themes.
5. Export your work to CSV or JSON for analysis elsewhere.

Themes & coding

Each comment can have multiple themes. You can rename themes, merge them, and reuse theme sets across projects. The stats panel on the right shows how many comments are coded to each theme and their percentages.

Flags, filters & randomisation

Flags let you mark comments you want to come back to (for review, sensitive issues, or training examples).
Filters let you focus on all comments, only coded ones, or only uncoded ones.
Random order can be switched on before coding if you want a random sample rather than working top-to-bottom.

Theme suggestions (smart helper)

As you code more comments, the tool quietly learns which words are associated with each theme. It then suggests themes for new comments with a high, medium or low confidence label. Suggestions are there to nudge you, not replace your judgement.

Time estimate

Once you have coded a few comments in a row, the tool estimates how many minutes it might take to code the remaining comments at your current pace. If you pause for a couple of minutes, it stops estimating until you get going again.

Saving, loading & appending

Save session (JSON) keeps comments, themes, flags and coding decisions so you can continue later.
Theme sets can be saved and reloaded on their own to reuse the same coding frame on new datasets.
Append new rows lets you add more comments from another file while keeping your existing coding.

Keyboard shortcuts

Use 1–9 and Shift+1–9 to toggle themes, ←/→ to move between comments, U for the next uncoded comment, and F to flag or unflag the current comment.

Privacy

All coding happens entirely in your browser. Files are never sent to a server, so you stay in control of your survey data at all times.