This dialog allows you to change the type of all the selected columns.
Column Type
Specifies the new type for the selected columns. You can convert columns to
variates, texts, or factors.
Ignore Case
Selected columns are converted to text ignoring case.
Ignore Blanks
If selected, leading and trailing blanks are removed when converting to text.
Sort Levels (Factors Only)
If selected, the factors within each of the selected columns are sorted by their
levels.
Tolerance on creating factor levels
A positive value in this edit box will be used as a tolerance in creating
levels from a factor. If two values differ by less than this tolerance,
the will be assigned to the same factor group. A value of 0 puts
all unique values into their own group. If the values have been calculated,
then values that display as the same may differ in their final few significant
figures. For example, the calculated values 1/3 and 200/600 may be assigned
to different groups depending on how the final figure rounds. A small
value such as 1e-12 could then be used to allocate these two distinct values
to the same group. The default value for this item is taken from the option
Tolerance on creating levels from variate in the
Spreadsheet Conversions Options Tab.
See Also
Edit Multiple Column Attributes
Convert menu for modifying single columns.
Duplicate Column
Code a Column to Groups
Spreadsheet Column Menu
In the command language, a variate or factor can be converted to a text with the
PRINT directive:
PRINT [C=TXT;IPRINT=*;SQUASH=yes] VAR
A variate or text can be converted to a factor with the GROUPS directive:
GROUPS VAR; FACTOR=FACT
GROUPS [Modify=yes] VAR "if the same structure is to be changed"
A text can be converted to a variate with a READ directive:
READ [C=TXT] VAR