How to Troubleshoot if variables in Q are in a different order than in SPSS

Introduction

This article describes why variables in Q may be in a different order than in SPSS.

The order of the variables shown in the SPSS data file differs from the order in Q. There are multiple possible explanations for this:

The variables have been moved in Q. If this has occurred you will need to manually move them back.
Data has been imported by updating an existing file, and the variables were in a different order to the previous file, or, Move them all to the top of my project was selected.
The SPSS data file contains Multiple Response Sets which specify a different order to the order in the data file. The solution to this is to remove or reorder the Multiple Response Sets in the SPSS data file. Where there is a discrepancy between the order in the Multiple Response Set and in the data file, the Multiple Response Set gets preference.