Solver and graph option!!

Hi bassollini,
Welcome to Numbers Discussions.

Numbers doesn't have the Solver function that Excel does. If there's a workaround I'm not aware of one.

As yourself we here at the Numbers discussions are end users, we don't have any more knowledge about Apple plans than you do.

Allow me to suggest sending a message to the Numbers team by clicking on Numbers > Provide Numbers feedback.

Sincerely,
RicD

Solver is available in Excel only as an add-in, which has to be activated. Don't ask me why it is not always there, but that is how they do it.

Apple seem to limit themselves to Excel functions that do not require add-ins. Functions in the Analysis ToolPak are not available either.

It perhaps has something to do with copyright and licensing.

I set up a rudimentary Goal Seek Numbers Workbook yesterday. but it is at home. It is definitely not for the faint of heart. I used an example of doing a Loan where you want to modify the Loan amount to get a certain Payment. It does pause for a few seconds while it does all the recalculating. But it works just fine.

I made a iteration table that has three column, a Loan amount column, a loan calulation column, and a variant column (the percent amount to change the Loan amount with). The equations are basic, but a little complicated for the newbie. (My wife just stared at me when I tried to explain it, said all she heard was Chirp Chirp Chirp Numbers Chirp).

The variant column looks at the percent difference between the wanted loan payment and the Calc'd loan payment. that number is used to modify the loan amount on the next row, up ro down bepending on if the guess was high or low. the next row does it again.

I made it for 1000 rows long, and just had my solution grid on the first table always look at the 1000 row answers.

I will post a link to my Zip file on this forum tonight. Its not perfect, or especially pretty. But it works.

Hope this will help a few people,
Jason

ok, here is my little workaround for a goal seek. It might give some people an idea on how to solve their problems. Download Zip File

Also, it is not copyright issues keeping apple from implementing those Add-in functions. Its obscurity. Only 1% of people actually load the add-ins. Less actually use them after they load them. Trust me. I taught Excel professionally for three years now, over a thousand students a year. And only a very few even knew what analysis toolpack was. (less than a dozen used it often out of all those).

Remember this is the "Spreadsheet for the resy of us". Not the Hard core pros. Not the scientific or research professions. We are talking small business and home users that only use the basic functions in excel. They wouldn't be able to make a nested IF statement if their lives depended on it. Much less anything in analysis toolpack.

I love Numbers, and am a hard core programmer of VBA (Professionally now). I would love to see applescript implemented, and know it is probably just around the corner (2.0 most likely, a year from now). Remember your audience for this new spreadsheet. Expect what they will be using it for.

Hope this download gives some people some help. I hope I see all of you on the boards here helping out others as well,
Jason

Hello jaxjason

I downloaded your file and discovered a funny feature.

Here, as a french user I am unable to enter a formula embedding an absolute reference to a row (B$3)
So, I was really surprised when I discovered that your sheet containing such refs open perfectly.

Yvan KOENIG (from FRANCE jeudi 6 septembre 2007 09:31:10)

two possibilities:
1) it was made in English version, and you opened it in French version (I know its not a different version, but you see my meaning)

2) I actually had to make it at lunch time on my office machine in Excel. Then see if it worked in numbers that night. Maybe the importing from excel into numbers did it. I just used the open command and it opened right up.

I have heard that there are some weird things happening when you open excel files in Numbers. One being the odd inability to copy and paste a chart made from excel data, but if you make the chart from natively typed in Numbers tables, it copies just fine. Maybe we have another of those on our hands.

If you want we can try a few different things and see if we can find the answer. Then we could post it up here for others as a possible explanation or workaround for French users.

thanks,
Jason

Hello

Your sheet is working well, I am just surprised by the fact that its embedded absolute cells references are working when I open it in my french version.

It's impossible to enter such a ref directly in this french version.

May you send to me a small sheet with some absolute refs embedded?

koenig then a dot then yvan then an @ then tele2 then a dot then fr

I ask for that because Microsoft products are not allowed on my machines so I can't test the way Numbers treats Excel file and I would not be surprised if it treats differently true Excel file and AppleWorks generated ones.


Yvan KOENIG (from FRANCE jeudi 6 septembre 2007 17:25:35)

small sheet with embedded absolute refs in excel or numbers format?

I can send you the excel file to open in your numbers as well. See if that does it.

how about this? I will send you two more files. One I make in Numbers, entering some absolute refs by hand. Another is the excel file. If the pure new numbers file doesn't work and excel does, we know the answer.

nice to know some other people are willing to do a little extra legwork to help others out. glad to 'know' you.

Jason

Yvan,
My wife has an online class and home work due tonight for college. I might not be able to get to it tonight, her education has to come first... Most likely tomorrow night.

Jason

Hello

You may post a sample in the two formats. I will try to open each of them in my "french Numbers".

Here is what I get when creating such a ref:





I'm quite sure that the parser doesn't make a difference between $ as currency and $ as identifier of absolute reference. But, it's not my job to correct Apple's code. I'm just able to do my best to find and describe anomalies.

You may find the sheet: "essaiAbsolute.numbers.zip"

in my idisk.

You will then find a lot of scripts I wrote to respond here and there to different questions from users.

<http://idisk.mac.com/koenigyvan-Public?view=web>


Yvan KOENIG (from FRANCE jeudi 6 septembre 2007 21:16:42)