Individual Plot Overlay

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Lee Parsons
6 years ago
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2 Minitab has very good graphing capabilities but there are limits. Take this graph for example: Individual Value Plot of Var Var Quarter M. A. Sibley Consulting All Rights Reserved Individual Plot Overlay 2

3 What if you wanted to add a second variable to the plot to come up with: Results by Quarter for Var1, Var Var2 (Diamonds) Var1 (Circles) How would you do it? Quarter M. A. Sibley Consulting All Rights Reserved Individual Plot Overlay 3

5 We create an Individual Value plot: Graph We use the Multiple Graphs button, select the By Variables tab and then enter our Panel Variable M. A. Sibley Consulting All Rights Reserved Individual Plot Overlay 5

6 Here is the result: Next Steps: 1990 Individual Value Plot of Var We right click on the graph, select Panel, and then the Arrangement tab and change the Arrangement to 1 row, 5 columns Var Then we right click on the graph, select Add > Data Display > Mean Connect Line 200 Panel variable: Year Quarter We click on Panel variable: Year and press the <Delete> key to remove it. After this our graph looks like the graph on slide 3 M. A. Sibley Consulting All Rights Reserved Individual Plot Overlay 6

7 We make further changes to the graph: We reposition and 700 change the colour of the Y axis label to match the 600 plot symbol colour. 500 Results by Quarter for Var1, Var We change the colour of the mean connect line We change the text of the title Var1 (Circles) Quarter How do we capture these modifications so we can deal with Var2? First we take an aside M. A. Sibley Consulting All Rights Reserved Individual Plot Overlay 7

Expand the Session Window options, click on Submitting Commands and then click the button for

8 One Time Set Up of Minitab This set up changes the options for Minitab on a computer to turn on the Command Prompt. 1. Click Tools > Options 2.Expand the Session Window options, click on Submitting Commands and then click the button for Command Language Enable. 3.Click OK to save all your option changes. M. A. Sibley Consulting All Rights Reserved MTB 003 Minitab Macros 8

One Time Set Up cont d Having the MTB > command prompt enabled has advantages: 1. You see and can easily capture* the commands that Minitab uses for most operations. 2.

9 One Time Set Up cont d Having the MTB > command prompt enabled has advantages: 1. You see and can easily capture* the commands that Minitab uses for most operations. 2.You can execute macros or execs or issue commands directly from the prompt. (This can be faster than drilling down through the Graphical User Interface in some cases and it can be useful for debugging). 3.From within a macro you can request user input (eg. How many months of data do you want returned? ). The disadvantage? More clutter in the Session Window. You now see the MTB> command prompt in the Session Window. Behind Minitab s Graphical User Interface beats the heart of a 30+ year old command line interface. For most operations what you select from the graphical user interface defines the commands submitted to Minitab s command processor. Once the command prompt is enabled, the Session Window will display these commands. * The History Window also allows you to capture commands, even if the session command prompt is not turned on. M. A. Sibley Consulting All Rights Reserved MTB 003 Minitab Macros 9

10 We capture the commands needed to create this graph Making sure the graph has focus (by clicking on it), we use the menu option, Editor > Copy Command Language. This puts the Session Commands needed to create the graph in the windows clipboard. M. A. Sibley Consulting All Rights Reserved Individual Plot Overlay 10

Here is what the captured commands are: We edit the commands to reflect Var2 and then copy

In Minitab we Call up the command line editor via Ctrl/L Paste the commands

13 We again customize the resulting graph: Results by Quarter for Var1, Var2 Var2 (Diamonds) We change the colour of the mean connect line We reposition and change the colour of the Y axis label to match the plot symbol colour We change the plot symbol type and colour Quarter We again capture the commands that can generate this graph via Editor > Copy Command Language M. A. Sibley Consulting All Rights Reserved Individual Plot Overlay 13

We add a few lines the code for both graphs and we are almost complete: Layout is a command that lets us combine multiple graphs into one image. In this case the graphs will be on top of each other.

14 We add a few lines the code for both graphs and we are almost complete: Layout is a command that lets us combine multiple graphs into one image. In this case the graphs will be on top of each other. Each graph is added to the image until the EndLayout command is encountered This subcommand and sub-sub-command make the background of the data region of the graph transparent so that we can see the previous graph underneath. EndLayout indicates that the graphical image can now be created. M. A. Sibley Consulting All Rights Reserved Individual Plot Overlay 14

15 The resulting graph is almost exactly what we want: Notice that the Y axis scaling is different for both graphs since that Max and Min were being automatically selected. Var2 (Diamonds) Results by Quarter for Var1, Var Var1 (Circles) Quarter M. A. Sibley Consulting All Rights Reserved Individual Plot Overlay 15

16 The fix is to go back into one of the individual graphs and manually set the Min and Max values for the Y Axis. Why use the individual graph??? The reason is that you cannot capture the commands from a Layout. M. A. Sibley Consulting All Rights Reserved Individual Plot Overlay 16

17 We notice what the added commands are: We can add these lines into both of the Individual Plot commands from our Layout code, resubmit the code & we should have our graph. M. A. Sibley Consulting All Rights Reserved Individual Plot Overlay 17

19 Here is the final graph: Results by Quarter for Var1, Var2 By adding the statements: Var2 (Diamonds) GMacro; IndPlotOverlay; At the top of the code and EndMacro Var1 (Circles) Quarter Or any other name we like for our macro. At the end of the code and then saving it as a.mac file we will have created a Minitab Macro which can be used to generate our graph. M. A. Sibley Consulting All Rights Reserved Individual Plot Overlay 19