Histogram Parameters

Anchor Bin. Specify the starting value of a bin. If the value is less than the lowest data value, this is the starting value of the first bin. By default, the first bin will include the lowest data value. The anchor is set so that bin boundaries are at good values. You can change the default so that the first bin includes values that are not in the dataset. For example, you might want the values of 0–5 to be included even though the lowest value in the dataset is 6.

Note: If the variable being binned is a date, the starting value must be a date literal in the date format specified for the variable on the Variable View tab in the Data Editor (for example, 01/01/2001).

Bin Sizes. Change the size of the bins. You can either specify the number of bins or the width of each bin. The width also affects the number of bins. For example, if the axis range is 0–100 and you specify the width as 5, there will be 20 bins. The greater the number of bins, the more detailed the histogram is. However, more bins may make the histogram too irregular to see the shape of the distribution.

Note: If the variable being binned is a date, the units used for the width are days. Therefore, specifying a width of 30 indicates 30 days.

Denominator for Computing Percentage. For Histogram Percent, specify the base (denominator) used to calculate the percentage. See the topic Percentage Base for more information.