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2.4 Installing the Analysis Pack

Excel contains a variety of "add-ons" that allow you to perform additional calculations beyond the basic features build into Excel from the start. Some of these add-ons might require you to insert the Microsoft Office CD ROM, others can be installed without that disk. In general, the more add-ons you install into Excel, the longer the program takes to start up. Therefore you only want to install those options that you are really going to use, or uninstall add-ons when you don't need them any longer.

For this class you must install the "Analysis ToolPak", which contains a variety of procedures for conducting statistical analysis. Installing an add-on is simple, but differs slightly depending on your version of Excel. Here is the procedure for the

Analysis ToolPak for Excel 2007

Add an add-in

You should not be prompted to insert a CD-ROM. If you do have to insert the Microsoft Office CD-ROM you should contact the Help Desk at x2222 for further assistance (unless, of course, you do have the CD-ROM ...)

The functions from the analysis toolpak will now be available in the "Data" ribbon on the right-most side, named "Data" (and not in the "Add Ins" ribbon as you might expect.

Check the ToolPak                                                                      

The specific functions in that add-in are the same as for most versions of Office. If you select the "Data Analysis ..." option under "Data" you will see the following entries for performing statistical analysis on data in your spreadsheet:

We will explore several of these options in the rest of this course, but you are welcome to click on "Help"  now to learn more about the Analysis Tookpak.