Colorization
mTAB allows users to add background colors to cells. Customizing the cell background color allows for easier data tracking and comparisons in the spreadsheet view and even carries across to other areas, such as the TopN report.
From the spreadsheet view, cell coloring can be added in a number of ways.
In the first way, an area of the spreadsheet can be highlighted by right-clicking and then selecting Format and then Range.
The dialog that appears offers the ability to change the font size, color and/or style as well as the numerous attributes of the cell, such as number of decimal places or % indication on/off. Further, the dialog provides control of the background color for the cell.
The other method is to again highlight a range of cells from the spreadsheet and then to go to Appearance ribbon and select the Background Color (paint bucket) icon. This offers a drop down list of available colors for you to choose from.
By repeating this process, we can color any areas of the spreadsheet that we wish. You will note that the colors can be applied to the numerical cells, the question response text, or any combination of the two that we require.
Not only can coloring be added to the spreadsheet to call out interesting items, but also can be used to track those items during the use of the TopN Report. If we select columns D thru H and run a TopN Report, we see the following:
The cell coloring that was used in the spreadsheet has been carried to the report and allows us to visually track the placement of a response from brand to brand. In this case for example, we can immediately see that "Convenient Location" is rated highest for Brand A and second highest for Brand G. This method of cell coloring in the TopN Report is incredibly useful, but is not the only coloring tool we have available in this view.
Added to the TopN view, we have the TopN Color Options toolbar icon. If we started with an uncolored spreadsheet and clicked on TopN Color Options, this dialog appears.
The dialog shows the most frequently mentioned responses from the selected row question and assigns a color for each. It offers the ability for the user to change the font, color and overall look for each response through the use of the Change button. Users can change the number of responses colored by adjusting the Auto Color First TopN Responses box.
The Colorize check box allows this feature to be easily turned on and off when needed and the Save Formatting as Default button allows a user to customize the colors, fonts, etc used for their TopN Colorize view and to save those settings to be used in each mTAB session.
Checking Colorize and clicking the OK button colors the TopN Report as shown.
Again, the colors allow users to visually track responses from column to column. You will note that some cells are left uncolored and these would be ones that did not fall in the set of most popular responses for that question that you asked to have colored.
With either method of coloring, the resulting spreadsheet or TopN Report can be exported to an Excel or HTML format and all of the cell formatting will be maintained in the exported file.
