A lot of Mac users knock Excel for not being as pretty as Numbers on the Mac, but at the end of the day the hardcore Excel users care about one thing and that is functionality. If you’re looking for strong analytics tool that can easily calculate regressions, ANOVA, and other tools used by statisticians, then Excel with the StatPlus add-in is the solution for you.
However if you’re coming from a Windows environment you will find that there is no add-in dialog that allows you to install the StatPlus normally found in Excel for Windows. That’s because Excel 2011 doesn’t ship with StatPlus, it requires a separate download and install from the makers of StatPlus. Check out the guide below to get you started with StatPlus for Excel 2011 on your Mac.
Software/Hardware used: Excel 2011 and StatPlus:Mac LE running on Mac OS X.
Download and Setup StatPlus
1. Head on over to AnslystSoft.com to download a free copy of StatsPlus:Mac LE. Open the Zip file and extract the DMG file.
2. When you run the DMG file drag the application icon to the Applications folder.
3. To begin using StatPlus with Excel 2011, open the spreadsheet you wish to run the analysis on. Then open the StatPlus application and click Spreadsheet > Microsoft Excel.
Run Your First Analysis
To make sure everything is working as it should let’s give StatPlus a try.
1. Using the spreadsheet you opened in the previous section click Statistics > Basic Statistics then Descriptive Statistics.
2. Select the cell range you wish to use and click OK.
In a couple of seconds you will see a separate spreadsheet with the details of the analysis, that’s it. Play with the other tools to become familiar with the StatPlus application on your Mac.
Check back in the next couple of weeks because we will be covering some of the analytical tools in detail. If you have any comments or questions please use the comments form below.
