USING EXCEL AND VISTA TOGETHER


WE REGRET THAT THIS FEATURE ONLY WORKS FOR VERSIONS OF MS-WINDOWS USING THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE.


ViSta works with Excel: Each program can transfer data to the other program, translating it into the other program's native language. The two programs are very complimentary, each one enhancing the capabilities of the other.

EXCEL USERS: You can use ViSta to visualize and analyze your Excel data. Simply use Excel's ViSta menu to transfer your data to ViSta or to save your Excel Data as a ViSta datafile. Then you can use ViSta's highly interactive graphical environment to visually explore your data. Or, if you wish, you can use other items of Excel's ViSta menu to have ViSta automatically visualize and analyze your data.

VISTA USERS: You can use Excel to prepare data for analysis and visualization by Vista. You can also transfer your ViSta data to Excel. In both cases you can use Excel to enter and manipulate data. Thus, you can enter your data into an excel spreadsheet and use Excel's capabilities to prepare your data for use in ViSta. Then, when the data are ready, simply transfer them to ViSta, or save them as a ViSta datafile using items of Excel's ViSta menu.

ALL USERS: You can switch back and forth between ViSta and Excel at any time, and send data back and forth as often as you need to. You can use both programs interactively, giving  you access to Excel's data preparation and manipulation capabilities, and to ViSta's data visualization and analysis capabilities.

Here is a summary of what you have to do. More detail is available in other help items.


USE VISTA TO RUN VISTA EXCEL
Excel and ViSta communicate with each other by a communication's link created by an Excel Macro. You must run ViSta first, and then use ViSta to run Excel to create the link. This can be done by ViSta's "Run Excel" item of the "Options" menu, or by using the "ViSta-Excel" item in  the Start Menu's ViSta group.

FORMATTING EXCEL'S DATA FOR VISTA
You can analyze data contained in an Excel spreadsheet with ViSta if the data are formatted correctly. You can use whatever method Excel provides for getting data into an Excel datasheet. For example, you can enter your data into a new spreadsheet or you can retrieve a previously defined spreadsheet as you normally would. You will then probably need to edit the data to get them ready for ViSta. Here's what to do:

a) The data must be in a rectangular array of contiguous cells.
b) The top row of cells must contain variable NAMES. The NAMES can be anything you wish, but cannot contain single or double quote marks. NAMES are used by ViSta to identify columns of data.
c) The second row must contain variable TYPES. The variable TYPE can only be NUMERIC or CATEGORY (upper or lower case, no quote marks).
d) The left column must contain observation labels. Labels can be any information you desire. They are used by ViSta to identify the rows of data.
e) The first cell in the NAMES row and the first cell in the LABELS row are ignored. 

GETTING YOUR DATA INTO VISTA
There are two steps involved in getting your data into ViSta:
a) SELECT DATA: You must select the portion of your spreadsheet that contains the data you wish to use with ViSta. 
b) EXCEL'S VISTA MENU: The second step is to use Excel's ViSta menu to transfer your data to ViSta and, optionally, have ViSta visualize or analyze them. Each item of the menu transfers your data to ViSta. Some items also perform "canned" analyses.

RE-PROGRAM THE CONNECTION
The ViSta-Excel connection doesn't do what you want? Then see the documentation on chaing Excel's ViSta menu.


