<html><body><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:12pt"><div>Hello there. Thanks to Ramon again, and Alex this time.</div><div><br></div><div>It looks like the root of the problem is recognition of the type of data. I followed the links you gave me but I'm only a software user not a programmer so I don't know how to create a .csvt file. </div><div><br></div><div>I began by creating a Mac spreadsheet with some columns in text and some numerical. Cell recognition is set at automatic. Export to csv format and then join to a pre-existing shape file attribute table, all of which seems to work OK until I try to use graduated render.</div><div><br></div><div>Further ideas welcome.</div><div><br></div><div>Thanks in advance</div><div><br></div><div>David Asquith</div></div></body></html>