The Data window displays data in the workspace and can be accessed by clicking the button (see Figure 2.2). In this window you can inspect and edit your data. Use the horizontal and vertical scroll panes to move through the contents of the data windows. When you have …nished editing your data, click and then . Once you press the button, changes you have made to your data are permanent and cannot be undone. You can also copy to clipboard a set of cells, by selecting the cells and pressing the
button. Micro…t will automatically add dates and column names to copied data.
2.5.1 Program options
Various aspects of the program may be customized to personal preference using Edit, Op- tions, and Window Menus.
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Figure 2.2: The Data Editor
Printing of results
To specify how your results are printed out, choose Result Printing from the Options Menu. When you …rst install Micro…t you are prompted to enter the name of the current researcher (user). To edit or replace the name, click on the Name of Researcher …eld and edit (or delete) the name as necessary.
Page numbers are added to your result printout by default. The date of your results and the name of the researcher are added to results printouts by default. To exclude them, uncheck the ‘Print date and researcher name’option.
Changing font
You have two choices when specifying how the contents of Micro…t editors and results win- dows are displayed. You can either change the font in the current window, or change the font for all editors and/or results windows. To change the font style, size or colour in which the current editor or result window is displayed, click the button and choose an alternative font, size, and/or colour from the Font dialogue. To change the default fonts, choose ‘Editor defaults’from the Options Menu. The default font used in all Editor boxes is Courier New.
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The default colour and size are blue 16-point. To change the default font, click the button ‘All Editor Boxes’and choose an alternative font, size, and/or colour from the Font dialogue box. Then click . The changes you have made will be immediately implemented.
The default font used in all result windows is black Courier New 9-point. To change the default font, click the button ‘All Result Windows’and choose an alternative font, size and/or colour from the Font dialogue box. Then click . (To ensure the correct display of results, only the …xed fonts available on your computer are listed).
To save the new font as default in Micro…t, check the ‘Save as defaults’checkbox in the Options Menu.
2.5.2 Help
Micro…t has an extensive on-line help facility. For help on the part of the application you are currently using, click the button or press F1. Alternatively, use the Help Menu. This has several options:
OverviewShows general information on using Micro…t help. Click on a topic highlighted in green to move there.
Contents Shows a list of help topics. Click on a topic highlighted in green to move there.
Help on functions Displays help on various functions available in Micro…t. Help on commands Displays help on commands.
About Provides copyright information about Micro…t for Windows.
To access the help options in Micro…t 5.0 you need to have Acrobat Reader 6 or above installed on your PC. Also before using the help options in Micro…t we recommend that you ensure that your Acrobat Reader (or Adobe Acrobat if you have one installed) allows you to access the internet from PDF …les.
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Processing and Data Management
23
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Inputting and Saving Data Files
Data can be input into Micro…t directly from the keyboard, from ASCII …les, CSV …les, or Excel …les, from special Micro…t …les saved previously, or from AREMOS (TSD) …les.1 Data on the workspace of Micro…t can be saved as ASCII/text …les, Excel sheet, as special Micro…t …les, as TSD …les or as comma delimited (CSV) …les with descriptions of variables in the second row. It is also possible to copy data sets from the clipboard to Micro…t.
To input and save data, use the options in the File Menu. You can also use the ‘Add a Special Micro…t File to Workspace’option in the File Menu to add new variables (already saved in a special Micro…t …le) to your current data set, or select ‘Add 2 Special Micro…t Files’to combine two Micro…t …les containing the same variables.
3.1
Change data dimension
Before inputting data, make sure that the dimension of your data set does not exceed the size limits of Micro…t. Micro…t 5.0 has a limit of 200 variables, and can run regressions up to 102 regressors, while it has no limits on the number of observations in the data. The default maximum number of observations is 6,000, but it may be changed upwards or downwards.
You can change the default data/variable dimensions by clicking the ‘Change Data Di- mension’option in the File Menu. You are presented with a window where you can set the maximum number of observations, variables and regressors (see Figure 3.1). If you set the option ‘Save as Defaults’, these numbers will be remembered and become the default setting when you open Micro…t.