[Paraview] Loading FIle Types

[Michael Tzeng]

Hello Paraview Community,
I'm an undergraduate student at George Washington University working on research in a Bio-fluids lab in the Mechanical Engineering Department. I've been tasked to learn how to use Paraview to read various types of lab data. I've been learning from the tutorial and playing with the provided files from the Paraview website. The file type I've been learning from is .ex2 or Exodus II.
I've tried to load Tecplot files saved in the .dat format, but I was never able to successfully display any data.  My main question is does data have to be converted to certain files for Paraview to be able to read them or is there an in between step that you can perform that will allow Paraview to read the file that is trying to be loaded? Of course the file types that I tried to load are all the file types Paraview claim they can read. 
What I did. I opened my selected Tecplot file and Paraview then asked "Open Data With.." and a list of file types would be presented to me. This is screenshot number one. I tried all the options, but the option that seemed to almost produce a result was "Tecplot files". After I select "Tecplot Files" I would load all the variables and hit apply. An error report would pop up and I would be unable to see my data. This can be seen in screenshot number two. The Tecplot file I tried opening is included in this email and is called 85 Waves_trans_Coher.dat.
I tried approaching this problem with another method. I opened one of the saved files I had been working on from the tutorial in Notepad++. I thought if I changed my existing file to match how the data was written in the .ex2 file Paraview would be able to read it. I edited the Tecplot file I was working on in excel to match the .ex2 file. I tried opening it and it still didn't work. I knew Paraview is able to read .CSV files so I then edited my file in excel to match the format of .CSV. I opened the file and hit apply. It displayed my data as seen in screenshot number 3. I then used the command, ctrl + space, and searched for Table to Points. I set my three variables to the X, Y, Z column and hit apply. I was able to display my data at last! This can be seen in screenshot number 4. But I want to know how I'm able to display my data in it's original file type without having to manipulate it. And I want to know how I can color my displayed data in .CSV by variable. For some reason it doesn't give me the option of selecting color by variables. 
All the files are saved online. I will provide a link that will take you to the files.
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/wlpspkk3qc29ms0/AAA8t0Wlu-oHE1WTUwgEmA4ea?dl=0

Let me know what I'm doing wrong.
Thank you!
H
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