Sheets

When selected, data will be updated in the Genstat server (memory) whenever you move the cursor focus to another window or menu. If the spreadsheet is loaded from a file, the entire data set is sent to the Genstat server on the first update. Subsequent updates only send modified values.

If a new spreadsheet is opened with Genstat data, only the modifications are transmitted. If you disable this option, you have to use one of the Update items from the Spread menu to ensure that changed data values are updated before proceeding to use other menus to analyse data.

For very large spreadsheets, updating the data to Genstat can be time consuming. The Maximum file size option (below) lets you specify a limit for the size of spreadsheets that allow automatic updating data to Genstat.

Therefore, any spreadsheets larger than the value given will have automatic updating disabled and the spreadsheet must then be updated by selecting Spread | Update and choosing an option.

Missing values (or empty cells in text columns) can be represented as null fields or asterisks (*) when copying cells to the clipboard. When null fields are written to the clipboard the <TAB> separators are still included.

The appropriate choice will depend on the intended destination of the pasted data; for copying to a spreadsheet via the clipboard a null field should be used, whereas if the data is being inserted in a text file asterisks may be a better representation.

An asterisk (*) is displayed in the status bar when this option is selected. The current default is applied to each spreadsheet on opening; subsequent changes to the Spreadsheet Options menu do not affect open spreadsheets. However, the shortcut Ctrl+Shift+F8 can be used to toggle the setting for the current spreadsheet

Controls whether a dialog specifying the options for creating a new spreadsheet from clipboard data is displayed when you copy data onto the clipboard then select Spread | New | From Clipboard.

This option is enabled when the Paste with full precision option (see above) has been selected. When selected, dates are copied to the clipboard as displayed within the column (e.g. as text). If this option is not selected dates will be copied to the clipboard using its numerical date/time value. Genstat stores a date/time value as an 8 byte double precision real value.

The integer part of the value is interpreted as the number of days from a base date, and the fractional component as the time during the day, as a fraction of 24 hours (e.g. 0.25 = 6 hours). For more information on how Genstat interprets and handles dates please refer to Formatting Columns as Dates or Times.

Controls how data is copied from Excel to Genstat using the clipboard. When copying data to the clipboard within Excel the data are copied as text exactly as they are currently displayed within Excel. This means that numbers displayed with a fixed number of decimals will only be copied with that number of decimals and this can result in the loss of some precision.

When this option is selected, Genstat will read the underlying binary values for the data on the clipboard, and the associated formats (e.g. date format) rather than the text displayed on the clipboard. Therefore, numerical data will be copied with full precision and date/time data will be copied as dates.

Note: Excel has an option to base dates from 1904 rather than 1900. Excel does not pass the base date as part of its BIFF format, so if you create date columns using the clipboard when the base date in Excel is 1904, this will produce incorrect dates. The only way to get correct dates is to use the File | Open menu or the Excel import wizard. To create a 1904 base date so that it displays correctly, a value of 1462 must be added to these columns.

Cornell Ecology Format files (also known as Cornell Reduced Condensed Format) are text files in a special format. There is no standard extension for these files, so you must specify the file extensions to use for this format.

The default extensions interpreted as being this format are CEP, CRC, SPE and ENV, but you can change this here so that text files with the specified extensions will then be read into a spreadsheet rather than opened into an edit window. Enter the file extensions to be interpreted in CE format, separating them with semicolons (e.g. CEP;CRC;SPE;ENV).