MINITAB ESSENTIALS

1
MINITAB ESSENTIALS

• A basic overview of the Minitab application
• Information Education and Technology 603, Section
  201
• Professor Dr. A. Zargari
• January 27, 2005
• Rick Wagoner

2
Before you Begin

• What you should know before you begin
• You should know the basics of using your
  computer. If you need help performing these
  tasks you should reference your system manuals
• What you will learn
• You will learn to maneuver and use the basic
  Minitab environment. Step-by-step tutorials are
  provided in Chapter 8, Session One MINITAB
  Basics
• If your screen looks different
• Minitab can be used on different operating
  systems and each may display the contents of your
  project differently

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Starting and Exiting

• Start Minitab
• Click on the START button and then click on
  Programs ? Minitab Student 12 ? Minitab.
• Exit Minitab
• Click on FILE from the menu bar and then click on
  EXIT.

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Minitab Environment

• Session window
• Displays your text output
• Data windows
• Used primarily for editing of data in your
  worksheet
• Info window
• Provides a summary of each open worksheet
• History window
• Provides a record of all commands you have used
• Graph window
• Used to display graph output.

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Minitab Environment - 2

• Menu Bar
• Standard windows bar used for choosing commands
• Toolbar
• Standard bar displaying commonly used functions
• Status Bar
• Displays additional information when pointing to
  a menu item or a Toolbar button
• Shortcut Menus
• Provides available shortcuts when you right-click
  on any windows in Minitab
• Tool and Attribute Palette
• Graph editing palettes

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Work Flow in Minitab

• These are the six basic steps that will be used
  in the normal analysis of data
• Managing Data
• Enter, Edit, Import, and Save data as well as
  generate data output for analysis
• Manipulating and Calculating Data
• Manipulate columns in the data window, sort and
  subset data, and create equations
• Using Data Analysis and Quality Tools
• Perform analysis procedures including basic
  statistics and quality control

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Work Flow in Minitab - 2

• Graphing Data
• Create, edit, and brush graphs as well as print
  and save graphs
• Managing the Session Window/Generating Graphs
• Navigate and change text as well as save output
  in a variety of formats
• Session Commands and Execs
• Use command language interactively or within and
  Exec

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Issuing Commands

• There are three ways to issues commands in
  Minitab menus, toolbars, and session commands
• Menus
• Menu Bar click on the commands listed on the
  menu bars and submenus
• Shortcut Menu Right-click in the Minitab window
  to open and then click on the command choice
• Toolbars
• The toolbar is located under the menu bar and is
  a quick way to access commonly used commands
• Session Commands
• Entered through either the session window or the
  Command Line Editor, these commands are
  especially useful when using Execs to automate
  repetitive analyses

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Working With Projects

• A project contains all of your work including the
  data, text output from commands, and graphs. You
  can only have one project open at a time and you
  save all of your work when you save a project.
• Opening a Project
• Click FILE ? NEW ? Project and then click OK
• Saving a Project
• Click FILE ? SAVE PROJECT
• Saving Project Preferences
• Choose EDIT ? PREFERENCES and then choose a
  category of preferences to be saved. Next click
  SELECT and then click OK and then SAVE

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Working with Individual Windows

• Each data set in a project is contained in a
  worksheet. You can have up to 5 open worksheets
  in a single project each containing 5000 cells.
• Understanding Worksheets
• Adding worksheets
• Click FILE ? OPEN WORKSHEET and then select a
  file name and then click OPEN and OK
• Closing worksheets
• Click FILE ? CLOSE WORKSHEET
• Saving contents of each Window
• Click FILE ? SAVE window type AS and then pick
  a file type and click OK

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Getting Answers and Information

• This presentation provides information on the
  basic functions but more detailed help is
  available in the following ways
• Readme File
• On-line Help
• Session Command Help
• Feature List
• Internet

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Where to go Next

• Now that you have a basic idea of the use of
  Minitab you can get started.
• If you need more assistance you can turn to the
  Simple Sessions located in Chapter 8, Session
  One Minitab Basics.
• However, to me the best approach is hands-on so
  jump in and begin learning.