I'm creating some pareto charts and the counts run into one another so they cannot be read clearly. Can anyone help me to change the font size or angle the text? I've tried selecting the the datatable but can't.

I can do it for the X and the Y just nothing in the datatable.

Thanks.

I just have ver 14, but here goes.

Go to TOOLS
Go to GRAPHICS
Go to FRAM ELEMENTS
Go to SCALES
Go to FONTS

Hope that helps.

You can also just click on the numbers themselves, then the font tab on far right.

Correction. Font size changes effected everything but not enough to fix the problem. I need to be able to align the numbers at an angle but can't seem to do that.

Any other thoughts?

Slect the graph, then go to the menu Editor/Select Item/X Scale
Then the menu Editor/Edit X Scale
The last tab in the pop-up screen should be "alignment"

This works in Version 14



Tim Folkerts

You can change the text angle for the categories as mentioned above or by doubleclicking on the names of the categories on the graph, then going to the alignment tab.

You will not be able to change the text for the numbers in counts, percentages and Cum%.

An alternative couild be to reduce the combine percentage in the dialogue box. Drop it down to 90% or 80%, it can be useful when you have a large number of categories to combine a larger amount of the smallest categories.

Use EXCEL

it's just a pareto chart. why fight Minitab???

Use EXCEL

it's just a pareto chart. why fight Minitab???

I have a horrible suspicion that your actually being serious there.

why is it a horrible supsicion?
A pareto chart is one of the simplest graphic designs. Minitab is a great tool for large data sets and complex statistical analyses. it is not a great graphical design tool.

a simple ranked bar chart is easy for EXCEL and if text size is an issue one can always use a horizontal bar to see the text. it's really easy in EXCEL and difficult in minitab. In fact - although I'm known as the queen of visualizing the data in my company - sometimes a simple rank order table is a better dispaly of a pareto chart than a bar chart...

the point of our analyses is to dispaly them so we and others can understand them - their is no inherent value that either tool brings to the analysis simply by virtue of being that tool. in other words Minitab doesn't make the data or the analysis better - or worse by itself.

No Im pointing out how easy it is to create a Pareto chart in something like Minitab or JMP from a column of text data.

Yet try that in Excel it becomes a painful nightmare.

Ok, for me its a painful nightmare. I like the ease of other more dedicated packages to excel where I go, here is my column of text, give me a Pareto chart, bingo one chart.

Admittedly I have given up on Excel years ago, I find there are better packages to use for most applications. Its ok to make do with it, but I have access to tools that mean I dont need to touch excel. I will always say that excel is great as a spreadsheet but nothing more.
Now my above problem with not being able to create a pareto chart in Excel probably comes from years of not having to use Excel. I used to be able to create all kinds of things, but that was a long time ago.

Enlighten me then, I have a column of categories, I want a Pareto chart, and I have Office 2007 sat in front of me. I have been trying and I am having to get it to jump through hoops to get what I want.

This is probably a matter of software familiarity, but I am interested if I can get the same output in as easy a manner. :D

I have the office 2007 and am having major problems with it, I can not even get the pagr formated without it saying I will lose fidelity. I had to delete half a 80 feature control plan yesterday. It shuts off macros, yeah good luck using the new office. Minitab you can change everything, just call them if you really are stuck. I found the CS at minitab to be very fast and give good answers.