There are two ways to get your data into Diversity.
You can type your data in. First, click on the Add Collection button in the menu bar to create a collection. Next, click on the Add Species button in the menubar and type the species name. Press tab again to highlight abundance and enter your abundance value, which should be a positive integer. Press tab to add another species. If you make a mistake, you can choose Undo from the Edit menu. You can also delete a collection or delete a species.
Diversity uses the species that you've already entered as autocompletion hints. So, suppose you've entered the species Acer rubrum in one collection and want to enter it in another collection. As you begin to type Acer, Diversity will suggest Acer rubrum. If that's what you want, press tab to enter it. If it's not what you want, just keep typing. This is a great way to minimize errors in data entry.
You can import your data from a text file. If you've already entered your data in another program (Excel, for example), save your file as a CSV (comma-delimited) file. If you're importing one collection, your data in Excel should be set up like this:
Species go in the first column, with their abundance in the second column. The species can be in any order. To import them into Diversity, go to the File menu and choose Import One Collection.
If you're importing many collections as a matrix, your data should be set up like this in Excel:
Sample names go in the first column and species names go in the first row. Make sure the upper left cell is left blank. To import these, go to the File menu and choose Import Group of Collections.
If you have just a list of abundances (without species names), just save the abundances separated by commas, tabs, or returns as a text file. To import them, go to the File menu and choose Import List of Abundances.