UNISTAT 5.6
Introduction
UNISTAT can be run in three alternative modes: as an Excel add-in, as a stand-alone statistical package and as a developer's tool. It features one of the best graphics subsystems found in a statistical package and has the ability to create output in Word and Excel.
Excel add-in mode
UNISTAT is a unique full power stand-alone statistical package that can also work as Excel add-in. If UNISTAT's setup program detects the existence of MS Excel for Windows, it automatically creates an Excel add-in icon within the UNISTAT group. By double clicking on this icon you can launch Excel with UNISTAT's pull-down statistics and graphics menu options added to the Excel menu system.
After preparatory data handling in Excel, all that is necessary is to highlight the block of data to be analysed and select a UNISTAT procedure from the menu. After selecting options from UNISTAT Wizard dialogs, UNISTAT will present the output as a new Excel worksheet. All except the UNISTAT Wizards will remain invisible to the Excel user. Moreover, when UNISTAT is run in Excel add-in mode, Word can still be selected as default output medium. Researchers who use Excel for data handling and Word for report compilation will find this feature most convenient.
Stand-alone mode
When used in the stand-alone mode, UNISTAT has many advantages:
- it does not have the data size restrictions of Excel
- it provides efficient data handling procedures like aggregate, recode, stack, unstack,
- it has an easy-to-use formula editor,
- and it has its own macro record/playback and logging facilities.
UNISTAT is also equipped with a fully-featured Excel-like spreadsheet, custom-designed for statistical data handling. Its formula editor dialog helps to construct complex transformations with ease. Various data types can be entered, edited and transformed with full support for missing values and data import / export is also made easy between UNISTAT and other Windows applications.
Developer's mode
It is also possible to run UNISTAT from another application without any part of UNISTAT appearing on the screen. If the developer has an application which requires the use of UNISTAT's powerful data analysis and graphics procedures, then UNISTAT can be called from within the application in any programming language (C, C++, VB, VBA, Pascal, FORTRAN, etc.), passing the data and receiving the results.
This facility makes UNISTAT a powerful yet flexible programmer's utility for corporate users and specialised scientific software developers.
Graphics
UNISTAT features one of the best graphics subsystems found in a statistical package. Some of its features are:
On-screen editing: UNISTAT supports full on-screen object editing of graphs. All text, legends, and the graph itself can be drag-dropped and resized and new text and shape objects added. All graphics attributes can be controlled from a series of dialogs available under the graphics menu.
Rich Text support: It is possible to mix different fonts and sub/superscripts in any text object. You can copy and paste formatted text between UNISTAT text objects and MS Word or other Windows applications.
Axes: UNISTAT can display axis titles and X-axis tick labels at 0º, 90º, 270º rotations or in top-to-bottom orientation, format the scale numbers and enter mathematical expressions for the minimum, maximum, minor and major tick values.
Interactive graphics: Clicking on and highlighting points on a number of graphs (in 2D and 3D scatter diagrams, 3D spin, polar, normal probability and regression plots) displays information on these selected points. Simultaneously, the row of the spreadsheet containing the point is also highlighted. In this way, it is easy to determine which points are outliers in the data set. In regression plots, if the key is pressed while a point is highlighted, then this point will be omitted and the graph redrawn with a new regression equation.
Other graphic features include: error bars, 3D options, exporting, chart gallery, categorial plots, means plots, curve fittings and symbols.
Output
When UNISTAT is run in stand-alone mode, by default, output is sent to a WordPad-like window, which is an integral part of UNISTAT Statistical Package. In Excel add-in mode, the output is sent to a new worksheet within Excel by default. After this, it is possible to send the same output to a number of other applications (e.g. Word, Web Browser, Windows system clipboard), without having to run the procedure again.
UNISTAT does not simply send the old style line printer output to these applications. Instead, it re-formats its output fully utilising the specific formatting capabilities of each application. When the Word button is clicked, UNISTAT will format its tables directly within Word, in the form of Word tables and when the Excel button is clicked, output tables will be formatted in the form of Excel tables. When the browser option is selected, UNISTAT creates an HTML file and formats the output as HTML tables.