Description of the software

Fiss helps you quickly create presentation-quality configuration charts, which are among the most popular ways of presenting QCA results. For a detailed discussion of Fiss charts, see Rubinson (2019) Presenting Qualitative Comparative Analysis.

Running the software

No installation is required. Just:

1. Extract the ZIP archive to a folder on your computer. (Do not run the software from inside the ZIP.)

2. Open the folder you extracted.

3. Double-click the launcher for your operating system:

   • Windows: FISS-WIN.bat

   • macOS: FISS-MAC (Apple Silicon only)

   • Linux: FISS-LINUX.desktop

Advanced users may also run the software from the extracted directory using a local Tcl/Tk installation. The primary entry point is fiss-editor.tcl. On Debian, you’ll need to install the packages tcl8.6, tk8.6, and tcllib.

Loading and Previewing the Examples

Fiss comes with a number of example configuration files in the Examples directory. Exploring these is the best way to get to know the software. Descriptions of each file are provided in the section Templates and Example Configuration Files.

1. Load an example file by clicking File → Open. Enter the Examples folder and double-click on “bellcurve.fiss,” which presents the configuration chart from Ragin and Fiss’s reanalysis of Herrnstein and Murray’s Bell Curve data (Ragin 2008).

2. The editor loads the configuration file.

3. Preview the chart by clicking File → Preview Chart

4. The Preview window opens, which permits a visual inspection of the chart layout. Note that the fidelity presented by the preview window is less crisp than what the exported files provide, so you’ll want to export the chart before including it in a presentation or publication (rather than taking a screenshot).

Exporting the chart

The Preview window includes a single menu option Export as… You can export the chart to either PostScript or SVG format. Both are vector-based formats, which allow charts to be scaled cleanly without loss of quality.

Use PostScript when preparing your charts for journal publication. PostScript files can be opened with software such as Adobe Acrobat Pro, which can also convert PostScript to PDF. A limitation of PostScript is that, as rule, it can’t be directly edited.

SVG is often more flexible than PostScript, as its files can be edited using image editors such as Inkscape, Adobe Illustrator, and Canva. These images editors can then export the file to PDF. SVG files can also be viewed in web browsers and imported into Word and PowerPoint documents. Use SVG when you’re preparing conference presentations and posters.

Creating a New Fiss Chart

To create a new Fiss chart from scratch, start the editor and click File → New. This will launch the wizard. The wizard helps you to create basic-but-complete Fiss chart, with all required elements.

The wizard has two tabs, followed by a final Create Fiss Chart button:

1. Input the basic elements of the QCA solution

   For Step 1: Define Structure, you will fill in the solution consistency and coverage, the names of the conditions and the names of the recipes.

   In the text areas for the condition names and the recipe names, you enter one name per line. Names can be composed of multiple words. For example, both “HighlyEducated” and “Highly Educated” are accepted.

   After filling in the required information for step 1, click the tab for step 2.

2. Fill in the configuration chart

   When you click on the tab for Step 2: Specify Recipes, the wizard creates a matrix that resembles a Fiss configuration chart. The recipes are read vertically.

   A dropdown list is provided for each condition. The dropdown list allows you to specify whether the condition is specified within a given recipe as a Core condition (present/absent), Contributory condition (present/absent), Necessary condition (present/absent), or is irrelevant for that recipe.

   There are also text fields for you to enter the consistency, raw coverage, and unique coverage scores for each recipe.

   If you leave a condition unspecified, the wizard will default to Irrelevant. If you leave a consistency or coverage score unspecified, the wizard will default to -1.

3. Create the configuration file and preview the chart

   Click Create Fiss Chart. The wizard will create a configuration file and paste it into the configuration file editor. At this point, you might wish to save the configuration file (File → Save or File → Save As). You can then preview the resulting Fiss Chart by clicking File → Preview Chart.

Editing Fiss Charts

The Wizard creates basic Fiss charts. For advanced features, you will need to manually edit the configuration chart. You will also need to use the editor when you want to tweak an existing configuration file—the wizard doesn’t load existing configuration files.

It’s also sometimes faster to adapt an existing configuration file, rather than starting from scratch using the wizard. For this reasons (and also to demonstrate the different features of the software), a number of templates and example configuration files are included along with the software. These are provided in the Examples folder and described in Templates and Example Configuration Files.

To open an existing configuration file, select File → Open and choose the file you want to load. You can then edit the file and save your changes. Please note the editor currently only includes basic editing features.

For more advanced editing, you can use an external editor, such as CotEditor on macOS or Notepad++ on Windows. (Tip: Set the editor’s language or syntax mode to “Tcl.” This will make the file easier to read by adding color highlighting and automatic indentation.) Be sure to save your configuration file as plain text; by convention, configuration files are given the *.fiss extension but this is not required.

Configuration Files

Fiss charts are defined using plain text configuration files. These files specify the chart title, solution metrics, recipes and recipe metrics and formatting options.

Most users should not need to write a configuration file from scratch. Instead, you can generate one using the built-in Wizard or start with an existing .fiss file, such as template.fiss or one of the examples, save it under a new name, and edit as needed.

The template.fiss file is the main reference for the structure and syntax of Fiss configuration files. It is heavily annotated and documents the available configuration directives. Users who want to make advanced adjustments should consult the comments in template.fiss while editing their charts.

Glyphs

Fiss charts represent the present and absence of conditions as glyphs. The glyph name is entered in the configuration file after the condition name. The available glyphs and special forms are:

Corepos

Presence of core condition

Coreneg

Absence of core condition

Contribpos

Presence of contributory condition

Contribneg

Absence of contributory condition

Necpos

Presence of necessary condition

Necneg

Absence of necessary condition

Irr

Blank. The presence/absence of the condition is irrelevant to realization of the outcome.

Necdeg

Necessity in degree as identified by Dul’s Necessary Condition Analysis.

Text beginning with =

Instead of using one of the predefined glyph names, a condition cell can display literal text. To do this, prepend the text with an equals sign. For example, =N/A displays N/A.

Leaving Values Blank

Some parts of a Fiss configuration file, such as recipe metrics, require a value even when you do not want anything displayed in the chart. In these cases, use a period (.) to indicate a blank value. Do not simply omit the value; when the software expects a value that is not provided, it will produce an error.

Templates and Example Configuration Files

The following files are provided in the Examples/ directory.

template.fiss

A generic, heavily annotated template that demonstrates the structure of a Fiss configuration file. The primary reference for the configuration stanzas and directives.

bellcurve.fiss

Table 11.5 of Redesigning Social Inquiry (Ragin 2008, chapter 11). This is Ragin and Fiss’ initial reanalysis of Herrnstein and Murray’s Bell Curve data and the figure that introduced the Fiss chart to the world. It exemplifies a few important features of Fiss charts, including: (a) subheaders that group conditions, (b) vertical rules that group similar types of recipes and (c) recipes that are sorted by core conditions.

greckhamer.fiss

Table 3, Greckhamer (2016) “CEO Compensation in Relation to Worker Compensation across Countries.” This is the first instance of first incorporating necessary conditions into the Fiss chart. This chart is somewhat unique for having a number of rather long explanatory condition names.

meuer.fiss

Figure 1 from Meuer et al. (2017), “Using Expatriates for Adapting Subsidiaries’ Employment Modes to Different Market Economies.” This complex Fiss chart uses nested headers and reports the number of observations associated with each recipe. To make the long subheaders wrap properly, “minHeaderColWidth” is set to 99. The original chart is even more complex, placing the results of three separate QCAs side by side. Fiss does not natively support this layout, but it can be recreated with some manual work: generate the three Fiss charts separately, export them to SVG, and load them in an image editor such as Inkscape or Adobe Illustrator. Remove the stubs from the second and third charts, then paste the three images together to replicate Meuer’s original chart.

dul.fiss

Figure 4.27 from Dul (2025) Advances in Necessary Condition Analysis. A replication of Dul’s NEST chart, which allows the user to integrate NCA and QCA, using a lower-right triangle to indicate necessity in degree, and specify degree of necessity.

Contact

Claude Rubinson
University of Houston-Downtown
Configurational Insight
https://grundrisse.org/qca/
[email protected]