Introducing the Solver feature

I’m only going to lightly touch on Excel’s Solver feature so that I can compare it to Goal Seek. Often, I describe Solver as Goal Seek on steroids. You can solve for multiple missing inputs, place constraints on the solve, and much more. With that said, if you like Goal Seek, you’ll like Solver even more once you get past the busier user interface. The Solver feature is an Excel add-in, which enables additional functionality that is not available in the default installation of Excel. The first step to using Solver is to enable the add-in:

1. Choose File | Options | Add-Ins (or choose Tools | Excel Add-Ins in Excel for Mac).
2. Click on the Go… button in the Manage: Excel Add-ins section of the Options dialog box (skip this step in Excel for Mac).
3. Click on the Solver Add-In checkbox, as shown in Figure 6.23:

Figure 6.23 – Enabling the Solver Add-in checkbox

4. Click on OK...