What follows are clarifications and guidelines on how to interpret the information given in the various spreadsheets on the Rules Compendium page.
Weapon Range
When a weapon's range is given in numerical terms (squares or hexes), the stated range is the weapon's Point Blank Range (the maximum range at which the weapon can be used without penalty), not the weapon's maximum possible effective range. See the Weapon Ranges page for details on other range categories for various types of weapons.
Weapon Damage Type
When a weapon's listed damage type includes two or more different types of damage:
The word "or" (e.g. "Slashing or Piercing") means that the wielder can choose which typed of damage to deal at the time of making an attack.
The word "and" (e.g. "Slashing and Piercing") means that the weapon deals both types of damage simultaneously. If relevant (for example, if the weapon's target has vulnerability or DR vs one type of damage but not the other), an attack should be treated as dealing half its damage as each damage type.
A slash between damage types (e.g. "Slashing/Piercing") means that each end of the weapon deals a different type of damage. A wielder making a single attack can choose which damage type to use, while a wielder attacking with both ends of the weapon in a single action uses a different damage type for each of the two attacks.
Weapon Size
Weapon sizes in the Rules Compendium spreadsheets are given in terms of the item's actual size, rather than its "weapon size" as used in the SWSE rulebooks. To convert between the two notations, a weapon's SWSE "weapon size" is two size categories larger than its true item size.
A weapon's size, as listed on this site, determines how it can be used by a character of a given size, as follows:
A weapon three or more sizes smaller than its user (e.g. a Medium character wielding a Diminutive weapon, such as a blaster pistol) is a light weapon. Light weapons can be wielded one-handed, can be used while grappling, and (for light melee weapons) can be used with the Weapon Finesse feat.
A weapon two sizes smaller than its user (e.g. a Medium character wielding a Tiny weapon, such as a heavy blaster pistol) is a one-handed weapon.
A weapon one size smaller than its user (e.g. a Medium character wielding a Small weapon, such as a repeating blaster) is a two-handed weapon.
A weapon that's the same size as or larger than its user (e.g. a Medium character with a Medium weapon, such as a heavy blaster cannon) is too large to use. Such a weapon can only be wielded effectively if used with a tripod, or if installed as an emplacement or vehicle weapon.
Item Availability
Items (including weapons, droids, vehicles, and other equipment) can have four possible restriction ratings, denoting who can legally own the item and how much they must pay for a license to do so. In practice, the necessity of paying licensing fees is highly dependent on the local level of law enforcement, and may be waived entirely for some campaigns or locales.
Licensed items are available to the general public, but have a licensing fee of 5% of the item's base price.
Restricted items are available to anyone with a legitimate reason to have them, and have a licensing fee of 10% of the item's base price.
Military items are usually only available to governments, security forces, or legitimate mercenary organizations, and have a licensing fee of 20% of the item's base price.
Illegal items are illegal to own and can only be obtained on the black market.
Items with a listed availability of "—" (or otherwise with none of the above ratings listed) are legal to own with no restrictions and do not require a licensing fee.
An item's listed availability also includes its rarity, which might be one of four levels.
Items with a listed availability of "—" (or otherwise with none of the three descriptions listed below) are Common, and can generally be purchased from any sufficiently large and/or specialized retailer.
Uncommon items generally require some non-trivial amount of searching, and might only be found within certain regions, cultures, or technology levels.
Rare items are often restricted to a single planet or to a specific species or group, or otherwise occupy an extremely particular niche, and normally require a significant amount of searching.
A Unique item is the only one of its kind in the entire galaxy, or else exists in such small quantities that each individual item is accounted for.
Missing Information
Spreadsheet cells with no information provided can be interpreted as follows:
A cell containing only a long dash ("—") means "no relevant info" or "not applicable".
A cell containing only a question mark ("?") means that the information presumably does exist within the fiction of the Star Wars universe, but that I was unable to find it in the SWSE rulebooks or Star Wars canon and it may never have been specified.
A cell containing the word "unknown" in parentheses means that the information is explicitly stated in the canon to be unknown (or at least, unknown to the general populace) within the fiction of the setting.
A completely empty cell is either a mistake/oversight on my part or else is the equivalent of a long dash.
Information Origin
The source of the information given in a spreadsheet can be determined as follows:
If the "Source" and "Pg" columns on the far right of the row are filled out, then the non-red information in the row came from the SWSE rulebook and page specified (see the section below).
Red information means that the entry was altered, usually either to keep the game more balanced and consistent or else to match information given in other canon sources.
If the "Source" and "Pg" columns are empty but the text in the far left column is not red (and especially if the "Wiki" column is filled out), the information comes from some other non-SWSE source.
If the "Source", "Pg", and "Wiki" columns are all empty and all text in the row is red, the information is completely GM-original and does not exist anywhere else in the Star Wars canon or fandom.
Sources
A spreadsheet's Source column uses the abbreviations given below for the SWSE rulebooks. Source page numbers refer to the number listed on the pages of the book rather than to the corresponding page number of the PDF file.