SENDING DATA FROM EXCEL TO VISTA

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


ViSta can visualize and analyse data in an Excel spreadsheet, but to do this you must run Excel and ViSta by using:
1) the VISTA-EXCEL item of Window's START menu
2) ViSta's RUN EXCEL item of its' OPTIONS MENUIf you run Excel directly it may not be able to communicate with ViSta.


To make this process work as well as possible, follow these steps:

I:    PREPARE EXCEL DATA FOR VISTA
II:   SAVE YOUR DATA
III:  EXIT EXCEL --- yes, it means what it says!
IV:   RUN VISTA. 
V:    USE VISTA'S "RUN EXCEL" MENU ITEM TO RUN EXCEL
VI:   OPEN YOUR DATA
VII:  SELECT YOUR DATA. 
VIII: USE ITEMS of EXCEL'S VISTA MENU

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I: PREPARE EXCEL DATA FOR VISTA
   
1: Prepare the datasheet as you normally would, but subject to the following restrictions:
a) The data must be in a rectangular array of contiguous cells. There can be no empty cells. Missing values must be indicated by NIL or nil and nothing else (quotes and double quotes DO NOT WORK).

b) The top row of cells must contain variable NAMES. The NAMES can be anything you wish, but cannot contain spaces, tabs, or any other kind of "white space", nor can they 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). The variable typeany kind of "white space", nor can they contain single or double 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. The NAMES can be anything you wish, but cannot contain spaces, tabs, or any other kind of "white space", nor can they 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). The variable types cannot contain any kind of "white space", nor can they contain single or double quote marks. 

e) The first cell in the NAMES row and the first cell in the LABELS row are ignored but must contain a variable or value. 


II:  YOU MUST SAVE YOUR DATA AND 
III: YOU MUST EXIT EXCEL before you can visualize the data. This counter-intuitive step is required because you cannot visualize your data unless the ViSta menu is installed on Excel's menubar, and only ViSta can install it.

IV:  RUN VISTA
V:   THEN USE VISTA TO RUN EXCEL. 
You can do this in two ways:
a: Run ViSta. Then use ViSta's RUN EXCEL menu item to run Excel. 
b: Use the ViSta-Excel Icon in the Program Files folder. This runs a small program which automatically runs ViSta and then uses ViSta to run Excel. In Excel you may see an empty datasheet. It contains the macro for communicating between Excel and ViSta. You may minimize it, but don't dismiss it.

VI:  OPEN YOUR DATA. You now must re-open your data to get it back into Excel

VII: SELECT YOUR DATA. You must select the portion of your spreadsheet that contains the data you wish to use with ViSta. 

VIII: USE THE VISTA MENU. Every item of the ViSta menu sends your data to ViSta, and then does the indicted actions, using the new data. So, if your data are large and the transfer is slow, it is best to use the menu once and then ask ViSta to save the data as a ViSta datafile. There may be a menu item to do this, right in Excel's ViSta menu. If so, we recommend using it and then using ViSta to do the analysis.
