Absolute Beginners Guide to Quattro Pro X3

14. More Data Analysis

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Creating an amortization schedule

• Auditing spreadsheet formulas

• Solving for a variable

• Creating a frequency distribution

Quattro Pro contains a wide variety of analysis tools; in the last chapter, I introduced you to some of the tools you can use in a spreadsheet database, and you also saw a few tools you can use in a regular spreadsheet. In this chapter, we'll explore some additional tools you might find useful in a regular spreadsheet.

We'll start by walking through one of the tools available through the Analysis Expert. The Analysis Expert is a wizard that asks you to provide answers to questions needed to solve a mathematical formula. Using the Analysis Expert is a little like having a helper who figures out the story problem for you and then asks you for the numbers needed to solve the problem. Although there are 19 problems that the Analysis Expert can solve for you, we'll examine one so that you can get a feel for how the Analysis Expert works.

Then we'll look at some of the other commonly used analysis tools available in Quattro Pro. I'll show you how to trace spreadsheet formulas to identify cells they affect and cells they are affected by. Then, I'll show you how to start with the solution and figure out the variable of an equation. Last, we'll create a frequency distributionthat tool used by teachers to help them figure out the grading curve.