Valid Data Formats

You may enter any combination of characters into the Data View's data cells. However, only combinations of characters that follow certain rules will be recognized as valid numeric values. All other combinations of characters will be ignored and not charted. Row and column labels need not adhere to these rules. Any combination of characters is valid as a row or column label .

Rules

A combination of characters must follow these basic rules to be considered a valid number.

• Any number may be preceded by a "$", in which case the "$" is ignored in order to determine the numeric value. ( $120 = 120)

• Any number may be followed by a "%", and will be charted with a value of n divided by 100. ( 30% = 30/100 = 0.30 ) .

• Any positive number may be surrounded by () to indicate a negative number ( (1.5) = -1.5 ) .

• White space (spaces, tabs, and newlines) appearing before or after the number is considered valid. White space appearing within the number is not considered valid. For example the following combinations are valid:

" $1.25"
" 12% "

On the other hand, the following combinations are not valid:

"$ 1.25"
"12 %"

• Scientific notation is accepted, with 'e' or 'E', and can include decimal point, and a positive or negative exponent. For example:
1.32e+12
2E-10
5.3e9
Note that fractional exponents are invalid.

• Commas can be used to indicate thousands, millions, etc.

• Any number outside the range of 1x10-38 to 1x1038 (1e-38 to 1e38) is considered invalid for Chartsmith calculations, and is shown as "*********" in the data cell. Out of range numbers are treated as empty cells.

• Any relative time represented by any combination of Weeks, Days, Hours, Minutes and Seconds when their respective labels are from the set (WwDdHhMmSs), e.g. 5W 2h 32S

• Any absolute military or civilian time, e.g. 11:45AM or 23:02

• Any US or International calendar date, examples: 12/03/02, 12/3/2002, 03.12.2002, 03.12.02, 03-December-2002, 03-Dec-02, Dec-02, December-2002, December 3, Dec 3, Dec 3, 3-Dec, 12-3-02 9:45AM, 03.12.02 9:45 ...and many others.