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Options¶

This page is the control by control reference for the dialog titled Create Main Effects Plot. What the finished sheet shows is on Main Effects Plots, and how each plotted value is formed is on Math Details.

One panel, three commands. Main Effects Plot, Interaction Plots and Thumbnail Plot are built by the same options panel. The dialog title differs, and the Interaction Plots panel carries one radio button that is absent here; everything else on the panel is the same control doing the same thing. Where a section below applies to all three, the same text appears on Interaction Plots Options and Thumbnail Plot Options.

Outputs¶

The left side of the dialog is a box headed Outputs holding a tree with three levels: the worksheet, then each output on it, then each level of that output. Tick the levels you want a chart for. The dialog opens with every level on the active sheet already ticked.

The two upper levels are three-state. Ticking a worksheet or an output ticks everything under it, and clearing it clears everything under it. When only some of the children are ticked, the parent shows a partial state rather than a tick, so the tree tells you at a glance whether a selection is complete.

One worksheet at a time. Ticking anything on a second worksheet silently clears every tick on the one you had selected, and the options on the right rebuild for the new sheet. There is no warning and no way to draw charts from two source sheets in one Create.

If you press Create with nothing ticked, the dialog tells you At least one chart must be selected. and stays open.

The level lines say which sheet the numbers will come from. Under a quantitative output on a regression sheet the two levels are the output's name followed by Y-Hat and by S-Hat; on a design sheet the same two lines read Y-bar and S-bar instead. The second level is offered only when the output has a usable standard deviation model. Under a binary or nominal output the levels are written probability of followed by a level name, one line per level. On a nominal output the last level is the reference level and its line carries (reference level) after the level name.

Ticking the standard deviation level draws the standard deviation rather than the response. Nothing else on the panel changes with that choice, and the set points and the ticked factors are applied to every ticked level alike.

Every ticked level goes on one sheet here, one row of panels each, rather than on a sheet of its own. The rows are ordered by the output's position on the design sheet, and within an output the response level comes before the standard deviation level, so the sheet reads in the same order as the design.

Chart layout¶

The One specific pair layout choice exists only for Interaction Plots. For Main Effects Plot and Thumbnail Plot that radio button is not on the panel at all: All factor pairs (grid) is the only layout, and the Factors to plot checkboxes are the sole control over what is drawn.

Factors to plot¶

The box headed Factors to plot carries a checkbox per factor, and the factors ticked here are the ones drawn. This chart has no single-pair option and no axis pickers, so the tick boxes are the only control over what appears.

Every entry starts ticked. A design with blocks carries one further entry for the block, which counts as a factor throughout this dialog: it can be plotted and it can be held.

Clearing every box and pressing Create reports There are no selected factors. and creates nothing.

A nested factor is never plotted. A panel whose factor is nested inside another factor is written as NA in place of the chart, whether or not you ticked it. The remaining panels of the row are drawn as usual, and there is no message. Nesting is set with Is nested within factor: in the custom design factor editor; see Categorical Inputs.

Set points¶

A box headed Set points (factors held constant) lists every factor of the design, one row each. This list does not change with what you have ticked or picked elsewhere on the panel: a factor that is currently ticked in Factors to plot (grid mode), or chosen as one of the two axes with One specific pair, still gets a row here, and that row can still be edited. Its typed value simply has no effect on the chart, because that factor is drawn by sweeping its own range or levels rather than by holding it at one value. This box is shown only when the selected source is a regression sheet; it is hidden entirely, and takes no part in the chart, when the source is a design sheet, because a design sheet plots marginal means from the raw runs and a held-constant set point has no effect on that.

Each row names one factor. A continuous factor's row is an editable box defaulting to the midpoint of the factor's uncoded valid range, with that range shown beside it (low to high). The box accepts only a number (its validation rejects anything else with Must be a number, checked when focus leaves the box) and carries no built-in minimum or maximum: any number that parses is accepted, including one outside the factor's valid range. Typing a value outside that range does not block the chart; pressing Create instead raises a prompt naming the factor, the value typed, and the range, and asks whether to create the chart anyway. Answering no returns to the dialog with the value intact.

A categorical factor's row, or the row for block, is a fixed dropdown of the factor's level names instead, defaulting to the last level shown.

A set-point box never holds a value that is not a number. The box commits what you typed only when focus leaves it, and an entry that does not parse is rejected at that moment rather than committed, so the value the panel holds is always the last one that did parse. Pressing Create while a box is still showing a rejected entry reports One or more entries are not a valid number. Correct the highlighted boxes and try again., moves focus to the first such box, and creates nothing.

One further message exists in the code and cannot be reached. The set point for name must be numeric. guards the same condition inside the panel, but the box's own rejection means the panel never has a non-numeric value to hand it, so that message never fires.

Before it draws¶

If anything you typed reaches outside the range the factor actually took in the data, the software asks before drawing. A set point is one source of that. On the dialogs that carry axis range boxes, which are Surface Plot, Contour Plot and Trellis, a From or to value counts too, as does a trellis slice range, so widening an axis past the experimental range raises the prompt on its own with every set point left alone. The prompt lists each offending entry with the factor's experimental range beside it, warns that the chart will extrapolate beyond the data, and asks whether to create it anyway. Answering no returns you to the dialog with your options intact.

This is a warning, not a refusal. A prediction outside the range of the data is an extrapolation of the fitted model, and the model was never tested there.

While it draws¶

While charts are being written, a status line reports what is happening and a progress bar appears only when more than one chart is being drawn, since a bar for a single chart would sit at 100 percent from the moment it appeared.

Cancel stops the run cleanly between charts, not part way through one. A chart that has already been written stays; the sheet that was mid-write is deleted rather than left half finished. So cancelling never leaves a partial chart behind, but it can leave fewer sheets than you asked for.

Creating with the dialog left open lets you build several charts from one set of options without reopening it. The charts are identical either way: the only difference is whether the window closes afterwards.

When nothing is drawn¶

If the options you chose produce no drawable chart, the dialog reports There are no valid charts selected for the report. and writes nothing. Where the reason is specific, for example an axis rule or a source restriction, that more specific message is shown instead.

The dialog is owned by the Excel window, so Excel cannot cover it while it is open. If it seems to have vanished, it is on another monitor rather than behind the workbook.