5 Data entry

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5.1: Internal data sheet
5.2: Absolute and relative values
5.3: Transposing the data sheet
5.4: Reverse order in data sheet

5.1 Internal data sheet

Every chart created with think-cell has an associated data sheet, except for the Gantt Chart, that offers a calender instead. The data sheet is opened by double-clicking the chart or by clicking the button that appears when the chart is selected. The data sheet also opens immediately when a new chart is inserted.

think-cell uses a customized Microsoft Excel sheet for data input, which you can use in the same way as regular Excel. You can use all the same shortcut keys, you can enter formulas instead of numbers, and so forth. But of course you can also use an Excel file as a data source (see ‘Excel data links’).

To insert or delete a row (or column) you can use the respective buttons in the toolbar of the data sheet. The standard buttons for undo and redo and cut, copy and paste are available as well.

5.2 Absolute and relative values

The think-cell data sheet alternatively supports entry of absolute or relative values. The distinction between the two types of data is made by the Excel cell formatting. You can always toggle the interpretation of a column’s data with the button.

Keep in mind that for the display in the chart, it does not matter if you enter percentages or absolute values. If you enter absolute values but want to label the chart with percentages (or vice versa), think-cell performs the necessary conversion (see ‘Label content’). A simple data sheet with only absolute values looks like this:

For simple charts based on absolute values only, the “100%” row on top of the chart data can be left empty. If you choose to label the chart with percentages, the percentages are calculated from the absolute values, assuming the sum of each column to be “100%”. You can enter explicit values in the “100%” row to override this assumption. The following data sheet calculates percentages based on 100% being equal to a value of 50:

think-cell data-sheet absolute values with totals

Alternatively, you can fill in the data sheet with percentages. Again, you can choose to label the chart with absolute or relative values. In order to have think-cell calculate absolute values from the percentages you entered, you should fill in the absolute values that represent 100% in the “100%” row. The following data sheet uses percentages to specify the same data values:

think-cell data-sheet relative values with totals

The default behavior of the data sheet depends on the chart type: 100%-charts and area or marimekko charts with %-axis as well as pie charts default to percentages, all other charts default to absolute values.

5.3 Transposing the data sheet

The layout of a think-cell data sheet depends on the chart type. In bar charts, for example, columns contain the data for a single series, while in column charts, rows contain the data for a single series. Here is a typical data sheet for a column chart:

think-cell typical data-sheet for column charts

The size of a think-cell data sheet is limited to a maximum of 256 columns and 65536 rows. If the data for your chart requires more than 256 columns, you can use the Transpose Sheet button to transpose the data sheet, swapping the row and column data together with any category/series interpretation. Here is the transposed version of the previous column chart data sheet:

Transposing the data sheet lets you create charts where the data sheet would normally require more than 256 columns, and can often be used to simplify data entry when working with a large amount of data.

Note: The limitation of the number of rows and colums is due to the same limitation of Excel data sheets in general in Excel XP and 2003. For compatibility reasons the limitation also applies when using Office 2007.

5.4 Reverse order in data sheet

In think-cell, the visual order of data in the data sheet always corresponds to the order of the data in the chart. This is also true for flipped charts (see ‘Rotating and flipping charts’). If you want to flip the data in the data sheet, you can use the Flip Rows (or Flip Columns) button in the data sheet’s toolbar.

Note: This feature is particularly convenient to convert data from former MS Graph charts, because in MS Graph data is entered in headfirst order.

Note: If you have Microsoft’s Chinese Conversion feature installed, you will find the options Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese in the data sheet’s More menu.