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58 Entering, Editing, and Managing Data Chapter 3
Specifying Data Types and Modeling Types
point, or drag to select text for replacement. The I-beam deposits a blinking vertical bar to
indicate a text insertion point or a highlighted area of text to be replaced.
Double Arrow Cursor The cursor changes to a double arrow when it is on a column
boundary. Drag this cursor left or right to change the width of a column. Changing the width of
a column does not affect the column field width specified in the Column Info window (accessed
by double-clicking a column name).
Note: You can adjust widths of all selected columns at once by pressing the Alt key (Option key on the
Macintosh and Shift-Alt on Linux) as you drag the double arrow cursor on any of the selected column
boundaries.
List Check and Range Check Cursors The cursor changes form when you move the
mouse over values in columns that have data validation in effect. It becomes a small,
downward-pointing arrow on a column with list checking, and a large I-beam on a column with
range checking. When you click, the value is highlighted and the cursor becomes the standard
I-beam; you enter or edit data as usual with any values defined as valid text or valid numbers. List
check and range check values can be found by right-clicking the column name and selecting
Validation, and then selecting either List Check or Range Check. See “Validating Column
Data,” p. 144, for details.
Popup Pointer Cursor The cursor changes to a pointer over any red triangle icon or
diamond-shaped disclosure button ( on Windows/Linux and on the Macintosh).
Click to select a menu item or to open or close a panel.
Specifying Data Types and Modeling Types
A column in a JMP table can contain different types of information. However, all information in a
single column must be of the same data and modeling types.
• When you import data into JMP, it guesses which data and modeling types to use. Therefore, you
should check to make sure JMP guessed correctly.
• When you manually insert data into JMP, you should assign a data type and a modeling type as you
insert the data.
About Data Types
The data type of a column determines how its values are formatted in the data grid, how they are stored
internally, and whether they can be used in calculations. The three data types are:
• Numeric Columns only contain numbers, with or without a decimal point.
• Character Columns contain any characters, including numbers. In character columns, numbers
are seen as characters only and are treated as discrete values instead of continuous values. The
maximum field width for character values is 32,766 bytes.
• Row State Columns contain row state information—information that tells you if the rows are
excluded, hidden, labeled, colored, or marked. See “Using Row State Columns,” p. 165, for details.