Goal-seek in Numbers

AkbarA wrote:

Hi,

I'm an Excel user looking to shift to numbers. There are several functions that I use a lot, such as "goal-seek" in a formula -- how does one do this in Numbers??

Thanks --

Akbar

Hi Akbar,

If you use goal seek in Excel a lot then you might want to consider sticking with Excel. Numbers simply does not have a ready equivalent for that. Something similar can be done in Numbers with a script, but it won't be the same.

If, on the other hand, you only need to goal seek occasionally, and on a particular document or documents, then a script might do the job. You would need to provide more specifics, though.

SG

there is no internal version of goal seek, which is the simplest version of finding a value that satisfies an equation (for those reading this post that do not know. follow this link for an example)

There are two ways to do this. one is make an applescript that will do it. (actually sounds like a nice little project, i might try it) and the second is by formulas.....which reminds me.....when numbers first came out someone asked this and i made a file (that i dont have anymore of course) that used an extra table that had formulas that would adjust the previous rows value up or down by a factor based on the previous two rows of data (i think thats how i did it)

the bottom row of the table was more than a hundred rows down, where the formulas would now show the final answer.

you just had to point the first cells to the cell to change value and teh cell to set a value to (set this cells to a value by changing this other cells value)

something like that would only take a few minutes to put together.

Jason