Industrial Statistics with Minitab

1.2 Entering Data

Data can be introduced directly into the worksheet using the keyboard or retrieved from a previously stored file.

Example 1.1:

Enter the data shown below. They represent the sales, in thousands of euros, in four different geographical zones during the first 5 months of the year.

The little arrow in the upper left corner of the worksheet indicates in which direction the cursor is moved when you enter an observation and hit the [Enter] key. By default, it points downwards; clicking on it, the arrow will point to the right meaning that data would be entered row-wise.

As mentioned, by default columns are named C1, C2, … , but the row just below may be used to introduce specific names to those columns; this is highly recommended. In the previous worksheet, the heading given to column 1 is C1-T meaning that this column contains text data.

It is possible to create a new column as the sum of two others, for example, C3 = C1+C2, in such a way that changing C1 or C2 will also change C3 (see ‘Data operations’ below). Note that it is only possible to link columns but not individual cells.