Try this with a simple 4x4 file (sample file attached or make one up) before spending a huge amount of time on your real data set(s).

1. Login to a PC in the 3^rd floor Benson Earth Sciences Building (ESCI) computer lab
2. Click on the Start button on the lower left corner of the screen
3. Go through the sub menus of Programs, then Golden Software, then Surfer32
4. Once in Surfer, click the chart button (picture of a chart in the upper left, the words "Create a new worksheet" will appear in the lower left corner of the screen when the mouse pointer is over the button)
5. Enter all your X values in Column A, Y values in column B, and Z values in column C

   A	B	C
   X values	Y values	Z values

6. Once you have finished entering your data, click on the file menu (upper left) and click on save and enter a filename (sheet1 or whatever). Usually this doesn’t work (because you are starting off a shared disk with no write privileges) and you should click on the floppy disk icon (upper left) to open a "Save as.." dialog. Then choose a legal drive from the drives button in the bottom right (the C drive has a temp directory, D: is scratch, and if you have a floppy in it should be available too as A:).
7. Click ok, the data is now saved in the directory you specified. Close the worksheet.
8. Click the grid button (upper middle) select data, then select you data file (label columns if desired) and click ok. This step grids the data in the worksheet. After you choose the file, you have a lot of options for making the grid (grid steps and spacing, etc., as well as how to fill missing points). Usually the default fill of kriging is an ok choice. Set the numbers of rows and columns to fit your desires.
9. Click on the Mountain and Sun button (upper right corner, words "Create new surface plot will appear in lower left when the mouse in over it) or you can choose Surface from the Map menu.
10. Select your file (e.g. sheet1.grd … notice your file now ends with a grd instead of dat)
11. Make sure the Z-axis is selected as well as the x and y, then click ok.
12. You now have a map on your screen! Click on printer icon to print (upper right, looks like a printer). You can adjust the view from the Map: 3D View menu dialog.
13. You can use the button next to the mountain button to make contour maps (words "create new contour map will appear in lower right when mouse is over it") (Map:Contour in menu) or you can make a flat image with Map:Image menu command.
14. Play around as you wish to make map as fancy or simple as you want (note: there is now an HP Color inkjet plotter in the Geology PC lab you should be able to use). One trick is to superimpose a colored contour map on a surface plot (make both and choose Map:Combine Plots)–you can go through the online help to find out these tricks.

SAMPLE DATA SET