Set data source options

Open the data source options to confirm the default choices for file read options, how to handle whitespace, nonprintable characters, dates with regional settings, missing values, and text case inconsistencies.

Depending on your file type, some of these options may not apply.

Sheet

Select which worksheet to use.

Header Row and First Data Row

Define which row is the header row and which row contains the first row of data.

Field Separator

Select the special character, such as a comma or tab, that separates individual pieces of data within a line of text or data stream.

Text Qualifier

Select a single quote or double quote to identify the beginning and endof text in a field.

Decimal Separator

Select a period or a comma to denote the position of the decimal between the digits of a number.

Normalize Case

Select the the letter case of your text values.

• Do not normalize keeps the original text from the file.
• Uppercase capitalizes all letters. For instance, SALES ASSOCIATE.
• Lowercase does not capitalize any letters. For instance, sales associate.
• Proper case capitalizes the first letter of each word.For instance, Sales Associate.
• Sentence case capitalizes the first letter of the first word.For instance, Sales associate.

Trim whitespace

Leaves only one space between words, without any other whitespace characters like tabs. Also removes all whitespace before the first word and after the last word.

Remove nonprintable characters

Removes formatting marks such as line breaks and tabs.

Format dates based on regional settings

Uses the regional settings of your Minitab Solution Center global settings.

Create columns with equal lengths

Populates empty cells with missing values to make all columns have the same number of rows. Select Remove rows with missing values in every column to remove empty rows.

Note

Some data prep steps require that all data columns have the same number of rows. For more information, go to Unequal column lengths.