Special Edition Using® Microsoft® Office Excel 2003

Chapter 25. Using Analysis Tools: Goal Seek, Solver, and Data Tables

In this chapter

• Analyzing Your Data with Excel

• Using Goal Seek

• Using Solver

• Creating Amortization Tables to Calculate Mortgage Payments

• Using the Analysis ToolPak Add-In

Analyzing Your Data with Excel

Many Excel users input data into a worksheet, use simple functions or formulas to calculate results, and then report those results to someone else. Although this is a perfectly legitimate use of Excel, it basically turns Excel into a calculator.

When you need to do more than just type data into a worksheet, you can use special Excel features to analyze your data and solve complex problems by employing variables and constraints. Goal Seek and Solver are two great tools included with Excel ...