What is goal seek in excell?

Answer 1

Goal Seek is used to obtain a value as part of a calculation that will result in your formula a particular result. As a simple example do the following:

In cell A1 type 10. In cell A2 type:

=A1+B1

You will initially get 10 in A2. Say you now wanted to find out what value you would put in B1 so that the formula in A2 gives a total of 16. Obviously you know that it would be 6. What you can do is go to the Tools menu and select Goal Seek. In the dialog box that comes up you will get 3 things to fill in.

In the Set Cell box, type A2

In the To Value box, type 16

In the By Changing Cell box type B1.

The result will be the appearance of 6 in cell B1. Obviously that is a simple example that you could work out in your head, but occasionally there will be cases where you want to find a value that is not so easy to work out. That is when you use Goal Seek.