Overview for Stack

Use Stack to copy data from two or more columns into longer columns. When you use Stack, Minitab also creates a column of IDs to indicate which group each observation belongs to. You can use this ID column as a group variable in analyses and graphs.

There are three Stack commands: Stack Columns, Stack Blocks of Columns, and Stack Rows.

Stack Columns

Stack one or more columns on top of each other. For example, in the following worksheet, the data in the Seattle, Boston, and New York columns are stacked into the Sales column. For each value, the source is stored in the Subscripts column.

C1	C2	C3	C4-T	C5
Seattle	Boston	New York	Subscripts	Sales
63	36	52	Seattle	63
71	32	46	Seattle	71
68	35	51	Seattle	68
66	29	50	Seattle	66
			Boston	36
			Boston	32
			Boston	35
			Boston	29
			New York	52
			New York	46
			New York	51
			New York	50

Stack Blocks of Columns

Data from several sets of columns are stacked. For example, in the following worksheet, the data in these columns are stacked:

Seattle and Quarter
Boston and Quarter
New York and Quarter

The Sales and Qtr columns contain the stacked columns, The source column for each sales value is stored in the Subscripts column.

C1	C2	C3	C4	C5-T	C6	C7
Quarter	Seattle	Boston	New York	Subscripts	Sales	Qtr
1	63	36	52	Seattle	63	1
2	71	32	46	Seattle	71	2
3	68	35	51	Seattle	68	3
4	66	29	50	Seattle	66	4
				Boston	36	1
				Boston	32	2
				Boston	35	3
				Boston	29	4
				New York	52	1
				New York	46	2
				New York	51	3
				New York	50	4

Stack Rows

Stack data from a set of rows into a column. For example, in this worksheet, the data in rows across the Seattle, Boston, and New York columns are stacked into the Sales column. The Qtr column contains the row subscripts and the City column contains the column subscripts.

C1	C2	C3	C4	C5	C6	C7-T
Quarter	Seattle	Boston	New York	Sales	Qtr	City
1	63	36	52	63	1	Seattle
2	71	32	46	36	1	Boston
3	68	35	51	52	1	New York
4	66	29	50	71	2	Seattle
				32	2	Boston
				46	2	New York
				68	3	Seattle
				35	3	Boston
				51	3	New York
				66	4	Seattle
				29	4	Boston
				50	4	New York

Where to find these commands

To stack data, choose one of the following:

Data > Stack > Columns
Data > Stack > Blocks of Columns
Data > Stack > Rows

When to use an alternate command

If you want to stack corresponding columns from multiple worksheets, use Stack Worksheets.