Excel Geek Question

[Reid]

New question

 

How do I format the top row (or rows) to be a header so that when I scroll down the top row stays put (so I can keep seeing the variable labels)?

 

Select the whole row below the one you want to keep as a header and then select Windows > freeze panes

 

you can only freeze one set at the top or side, but not both at the same time which kinda sucks

 

Edit: oops; looked right past trogdors post

Edited November 29, 2007 by Reid

[pope]

btw, the rnd function is total crap. if you need a random number generator, don't use rnd()...

 

when has the RAND() function failed you? Excel 2003 and newer has a revised random number generator algorithm. Even the old algorithm was sufficient for probably 99.9%+ of all users.

 

Yes, tell us what the problem is.

[TrogdortheBurninator]

Apparently excel 2003 and newer has a bug where Rand() produces occasional negative numbers.

 

I still use 2002 and it's psuedo random number generator has always been fine for me.

[ken4ord]

Holy shit I know where to go now if I'm stumped in Excel.

 

No shite! Who would have thought I could actually learn something useful on this website. And all this time I thought it was all about speculating.

[crackers]

Well, have you ever done a scatterplot/analysis of 10,000 rand() outputs? I honestly haven't used Excel past 2003, so maybe it's better -- it's trivial enough to make them all positive -- but in 2003 and before it's just a terrible random number generator if you're doing any kind of simulation or light modeling. When there's money on the line (financial / risk modeling) and you have to do it in excel, I just wouldn't trust or use that random generator...

 

I used faure sequence psuedo randoms for small models, it's easy to program and works much better. If you're generating 5k+ randoms, then just do rand*rand*rand*rand*rand*rand*rand and that will be as good as it gets without sacrificing computational speed and efficiency.