Introduction to the Windows Version of Minitab
This introduction will cover the following topics:
Getting in and out of Minitab
Double-click on the MINITAB 15 English icon either on your desktop or under the Start menu. The window will fill the screen and will be overlaid by a Session window and a Worksheet 1 window. Note that the Minitab window has a menu bar; you can click on Windows from this menu bar to choose either the Session or Worksheet 1 windows (among others). Minitab worksheets have much less functionality than Excel worksheets; they can be used for data storage, but cells, e.g., cannot be manipulated. The Session window is rarely used by students to enter data any more since most commands can be executed from the pull-down menu or entered using the Command Line Editor under the Edit menu; the Session window is still used, though, to display text output. You can enter and examine data in the Minitab worksheet in the Worksheet 1 window and enter commands using the menu bar. Regardless of which window you are currently using, you may want to resize it so that if fills the screen. We will be making selections from the menu bar in order to manage files, execute commands and produce graphs in Minitab.
To exit Minitab, pull down the File menu and choose Exit. If you have entered data during your session, dialog boxes will appear to confirm whether or not you want to save your current worksheet and then your current session. Click No or Yes appropriately.
Conducting a Minitab Session
Minitab sessions are interactive; data is first entered, generated or read into the Minitab worksheet and then manipulated or analyzed through a series of interactive commands. We will enter a small data set (a sample class roll) and demonstrate some Minitab commands.
| Anderson | 9 | 8 | 91 | |
| Byron | 9 | 7 | 82 | |
| Cather | 10 | 7 | 85 | |
| Dos Passos | 8 | 6 | 71 | |
| Eliot | 7 | * | 61 | |
| Faulkner | 5 | 10 | 84 | |
| Grego | 9 | 10 | 95 | |
| Hemingway | 10 | 9 | 90 | |
| Inman | * | 7 | 63 | |
| Johnson | 8 | 8 | 81 |
Enter the 10 names in the Worksheet 1 window under C1. Note that C1 changes to C1-T because text (or character data) has been entered in that column. In the space below C1-T, you can enter Student as a column label. Use the same approach to enter the homework and test results in C2, C3 and C4; label the columns HW 1, HW 2, and Test 1, respectively.
Pull down the Graph menu and choose Histogram..., then select Simple from the four basic histogram displays. The dialog box contains many options but you can simply enter a column number (say C2) in the Graph variables box to obtain a default histogram display. You may also experiment with other graphics commands such as Boxplot..., Plot... (for a scatterplot) or Stem-and-Leaf... Pull down the Stat menu and choose Basic Statistics... then Display Descriptive Statistics.... Enter the columns of your choice in the Variables dialog box to obtain summary statistics such as the mean and standard deviation.
You can use the Calculator... under the Calc menu to perform math operations on the columns. Arithmetic expressions used in Calculator... are similar in syntax to those of traditional computing packages. Suppose you wanted to store the students' grade percentages in C5 and have the test percentage count 5 times the individual homework percentages. You would enter C5 in the Store result in variable: window and then enter the following in the Expression: window:
(10*(C2+C3)+5*C4)/7
Look at C5 in the Worksheet 1 window to inspect your results.
Printing Output
Minitab has several types of output: high resolution graphics and printed output, line-printer graphics and program text from the Session window. All text output can be printed in the same way: Highlight the relevant section of text and choose Print Session Window... from the File menu. Click OK in the dialog box (the Selection option will already be chosen in the Print range box). To print high-resolution graphics, choose the relevant graph from the Windows menu then choose Print Graph... from the File menu and proceed as when printing text. Graphs can be copied to another application by choosing the graph from the Windows menu, right-clicking on the graph, and then selecting Copy Graph . The graph can then be pasted to, e.g., a Word document. Text in a Session window can be copied similarly, though you should select Copy after right-clicking a section of highlighted text.
Saving and retrieving text files
You will probably want to use data sets from one Minitab session to the next. If you have data that you would like to save to a portable drive (inserted in drive F: of your computer), choose Other Files and then Export Special Text... from the File menu. In the dialog box you obtain, enter the columns you want to save in the Columns to Export dialog box (you can use the Select button, but make sure you have clicked in the Columns to Export dialog box first) and click OK. Choose, e.g., STAT506(F:) from the Save in: window and type the filename you want in the File Name box. Click OK and the file should be saved on your portable drive. These options are also available for any text in your Session window. To retrieve a data set , choose Other Files... and then Import Special Text... from the File menu in the appropriate window and enter information in the same way as when saving files.
Saving and retrieving Minitab Worksheets
In addition to saving data and text files, you can save Minitab worksheets; these are specially formatted files that contain not only the data, but variable names and other special attributes of your data set. Choose Save Current Worksheet from the File menu. In the dialog box you obtain, choose F: from the Save in: menu (you will have to scroll in order to see this choice), select a folder and type the filename you want in the File Name: box. Click OK and the file should be saved on your floppy disk. To retrieve a worksheet, choose Open Worksheet ... from the File menu and proceed as when saving a worksheet.
You can use Save Worksheet As and Open Worksheet to save and read text files as well (this can be more convenient than Export Special Text and Import Special Text since the number of columns can be left unspecified). To get started, select Open Worksheet, scroll through Files of Type and select either Text(.txt) or Data(.dat) to open your data file (you will have saved it with either extension, though .dat is more commonly used as a Digital Audio Tape extension and hence its use should be discouraged). You will need to click Options... and modify options depending on whether your text file contains variable names, special delimiters, etc. When saving the worksheet, select Text (either Unicode or ANSI) under Save Worksheet as.