Excel Cookbook

Chapter 9. The Analysis ToolPak

As you’ve seen in Chapter 8, Excel offers a wealth of functions you can use for statistical analysis. Using these, however, can sometimes be time-consuming.

An alternative approach is to use Excel’s Analysis ToolPak, which is available for Windows and Mac. This add-in provides data analysis tools that address statistical and engineering tasks such as generating statistics, performing hypothesis tests, and even running Fourier analyses.

This chapter guides you through installing the Analysis ToolPak and using each tool it provides.

9.1 Installing the Analysis ToolPak

Problem

You have some data you want to analyze, and you want to install a suite of tools to help you.

Solution

Load the Analysis ToolPak add-in to Excel. Once it’s loaded, you can access the ToolPak from the Data menu by going to the Analyze group and choosing Data Analysis.

To load the Analysis ToolPak in Excel for Windows:

1. Choose File ⇒ Options and select Add-ins.

2. In the Manage box at the bottom of the screen, choose the Excel Add-ins option and click Go.

3. In the Add-ins dialog box, place a check in the Analysis ToolPak check box and click OK.

To load the Analysis ToolPak in Excel for Mac, choose Tools ⇒ Excel add-ins to open the Add-ins dialog box, place a check in the Analysis ToolPak check box, and click OK.

Discussion

The Analysis ToolPak brings extra features to Excel that help make statistical and engineering analyses less time-consuming. This add-in includes tools ...