Excel 2024: Find Optimal Solutions with Solver

November 4, 2024 - by Bill Jelen

Excel was not the first spreadsheet program. Lotus 1-2-3 was not the first spreadsheet program. The first spreadsheet program was VisiCalc in 1979. Developed by Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston, VisiCalc was published by Dan Fylstra. Today, Dan Fylstra runs Frontline Systems. His company wrote the Solver used in Excel. Frontline Systems has also developed a whole suite of analytics software that works with Excel.

If you have Excel, you have Solver. It may not be enabled, but you have it. To enable Solver in Excel, press Alt+T followed by I. Add a checkmark next to Solver Add-in.

Press Alt+T I to display the Add-ins dialog. Choose the box next to Solver Add-in to load Solver.

To successfully use Solver, you have to build a worksheet model that has three elements:

There has to be a single Goal cell. This is a cell that you either want to minimize, maximize, or set to a particular value.
There can be many input cells. This is one fundamental improvement over Goal Seek, which can deal with only one input cell.
There can be constraints.

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Excel 2024: Find Optimal Solutions with Solver

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