Some Basic MINITAB Instruction
When you open Minitab, you see two windows: Worksheet Window which is for data, and Session
Window for Output.
There are other types of windows available. For example, when you create any graph, Minitab will give
you the graph in a separate Graph Window.
You can find out what windows are available for you by clicking on the ‘Window’ Menu.
Worksheet in Minitab:
The worksheet consists of three parts:
Columns [up to 4000 columns: C1, C2, . . .]. This is the one you see when you open Minitab.
Columns are for variables and rows are for cases. Each column is named, by default, starting C1,
C2, etc. You can add a variable name for each column to the cell underneath the default names.
Stored constants [up to 1000 stored constants: K1, K2, . . .]: Sometimes, the results from Minitab
analysis are constants. They will appear in the Session Window with names K1, K2, etc.
Matrices [up to 100 matrices: M1, M2, . . .]. You do not need this in this class.
Minitab automatically assigns the values of missing, e, and to the last three stored constants:
k998 = *; k999 = e = 2.71828; k1000 = = 3.14159. These values can be changed if you wish.
Menus available in Minitab:
When you first open Minitab, you see several menus on the top bar. They ‘File’, Edit, Data, Calc, Stat,
Graph, Editor, Window. You should navigate through these menus to see what are available. Some of
them are similar to Word, some are not.
Types of Variables available in Minitab:
Numeric: A numeric variable consists of only numbers like 60, 78, 95, etc. A missing numeric value is
defined as ‘*’ in Minitab.
Text: A text variable has characters that consist of a mix of letters, numbers, spaces and special characters.
Minitab will add “-T” to the column number automatically if the variable in the column is text. For
example, column C2 changes to C2-T.
Date/Time: Dates such as 9/10/2004, times such as 09:30:25AM or both. Minitab will add “-D” to the
column number automatically if the variable in the column is date/time.
You can change data types from text to numerical or vis versa by going to the ‘Data’ Menu, choose ‘Data
Type’, then, choose the function you want.
To create a data file or input a data file:
(1) You can enter your data into Worksheet just typing the data with your own definition of variable
names (which is the lower next row underneath the C1,C2,C3, ….). You simply type in the
variable names and begin to enter the data.
(2) To open a Minitab data file (.MTW file): How to open worksheet:
Choose File Open Worksheet. Be sure the correct file type appears in the Files of Type box.
Highlight the file you want to open and click Open
(3) To open a text file (.txt or .dat file). How to open Text Files [.txt or .dat]:
Choose File Open Worksheet. Change the ‘Files of Type’ to ‘All’. Look for your file. Open.
(This is the way we open the data downloaded from the website.)
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