Entering Values with Units

How To... > Work with Case Tables > Manage Units in a Case Table > Entering Values with Units

When entering values, simply enter the number and unit or abbreviation (see Units for a comprehensive list of built-in units and recognized abbreviations). If you add the unit to the first case in an attribute, Fathom will assume all values in the attribute share that unit, so you needn’t keep typing it.

When Fathom recognizes a unit, it substitutes its preferred form (such as cm for centimeter) and puts a space between the numeric part of the value and the unit. (You can type that space or not, but Fathom will add it if it isn’t there.)

If some values are in a different, but compatible, unit, Fathom will automatically convert them to the attribute’s unit. As soon as a value with a unit that differs from the default is accepted (when you leave the cell), Fathom converts the value to the value of the default unit.

Values that have a unit incompatible with the unit assigned to the attribute are colored magenta to set them off as invalid. These values will be ignored by other Fathom objects, such as graphs and statistical objects.

To use a unit that isn’t built-in, you need to enter it into the units row of a case table or the units field in an inspector (see Manage Units in the Collection’s Inspector). (This feature is handy if you have measured things in invented units. For example, suppose the class decides to have a student named Edna measure car lengths using her arm span as the unit; you can create a unit called ednas.)

You can change an attribute’s default unit or assign or remove a unit in the case table’s units row, which you can show by choosing Table | Show Units. (You can also do these things in a collection inspector’s Details pane.)