User Guide

Minimum Requirements

This book presumes that you have access to and a basic knowledge of Excel. In other words, you can open an Excel file (called a workbook), write a formula that adds cells together, make a chart, and save the file. As you will see, however, Excel is much more than a simple adding machine. You will learn how to use Excel in a more advanced way. In addition to analyzing data and learning many new Excel functions, you will solve optimization problems with an add-in (a special file that extends the functionality of Excel) called Solver.

The materials in this book will work on any Windows Excel version all the way back to 1997 (version 8). The screenshots are based on Excel 2019, but if you are using an earlier version, it should be easy to figure out what to do.

The workbooks and add-ins are optimized for use with Windows Excel. They can be accessed with a Macintosh computer, but Solver in Mac Excel is temperamental and buggy. Furthermore, Visual Basic (Excel’s macro language) on a Mac is limited so not all macros work. The best solution for Mac users is to emulate Windows with software such as Parallels or Boot Camp. For students at an educational institution, accessing Excel from a server (see, for example, VMWare’s Horizon software) is an easy solution for Mac users. Desktops.depauw.edu gives my students access to a Windows machine running Excel configured with necessary add-ins.

To ensure that older versions of Excel can open the files, all workbooks have been saved in “compatibility mode” (Excel 97 – 2003 Workbook) with the .xls filename extension. If you are using Excel 2007 (version 12) or greater, you should save your completed files in the “Excel macro-enabled workbook” format, which carries the .xlsm extension. Do not save your files as an Excel workbook with the .xlsx extension, the macros will not be saved and functionality will be lost.

For non-English versions of Excel, the files will work in the sense that buttons, scroll bars, and macros will function; however, the add-ins and other content will not be translated.

Recently, Microsoft Office has moved online, offering OneDrive and Office 365 cloud access. Regrettably, as of this writing, because of security concerns, online versions of Office do not support Visual Basic, a limitation which renders these options useless for working with macro-enhanced files from within a web browser. You can save a file with macros in your favorite storage area in the cloud, but you will need to download and open it with a desktop Excel version to run the macros. Within a browser, macros cannot be executed.

Downloading and Opening Workbooks

Visit www.depauw.edu/learn/microexcel to download the files that accompany this book. You may download individual files as needed or a compressed archive with all of the files to as many different computers or devices as needed.

Figure 1 shows that, when opening a workbook with macros, Excel will alert you to their presence with a security warning under the Ribbon (and right above the formula bar).

If you do not see the security warning or have no opportunity to enable content, your security level has been set to block all files with macros. Although malicious code can be harmful, you must dial down the safety measures to allow Excel to utilize fully the information in the workbook. Close the file and change the security setting to allow Excel to open files with macros.

Visit Excel’s main support page at support.office.com for more help on setting security and enabling macros.

Tips and Conventions

In this book, a figure refers to a variety of graphics, including charts and pictures of portions of a sheet (also known as a screenshot, like Figure 1). A chart or range of cells is often displayed in this printed book as a figure, but you should look at the live version on your computer screen. Thus, in addition to a caption, many figures have a source line indicating their location in the Excel workbook.

The book follows Excel’s naming convention for workbooks, sheets, and cells: [workbookname]sheetname!cell address. If the caption of a figure says, [FoodStamp.xls]BudgetConstraint, then you know the figure can be found in the FoodStamp.xls workbook in the BudgetConstraint sheet. Note that workbook and sheet names in the printed text are italicized to help you locate the proper sheet in a workbook. [RiskReturn.xls]OptimalChoice!B6 refers to cell B6 in the OptimalChoice sheet of the RiskReturn.xls workbook.

You may need to adjust your display or the objects in Excel. Use the Zoom button to magnify the display. You can also right-click objects such as buttons or scroll bars to select and move them. Once you open a workbook, you can save it to another location or name (by executing File → Save As...) and make whatever changes you wish. This is the same as underlining or writing in a conventional, printed book.

Finally, if something is not working the way you expect, there are many possible causes. It is always a good idea to close Excel completely and reopen it. Even if this does not fix the problem, slowly repeating the steps will help you debug or describe what is happening.

Organization of Files

Figure 2 shows the contents of all materials included in the MicroExcel.zip archive, after downloading it from www.depauw.edu/learn/microexcel.

The Answers folder contains answers to questions posed in Q&A sheets in each Excel workbook. Think of the Q&A material in the Excel workbooks as self-study questions.

There are also Exercises at the end of each chapter. Readers do not have easy access to the answers to the exercise questions. To see these answers, you must be an instructor and register online at www.depauw.edu/learn/microexcel.

The SolverCompStaticsWizard folder contains files that use the Comparative Statics Wizard Excel add-in. When used in conjunction with Excel’s own Solver add-in, these files enable numerical comparative statics analysis of optimization problems and equilibrium models.

Active Learning

The most important thing you can do as you read this book is experiment. You might find yourself wondering, “What would happen if this cell was 10 instead of 1?” Do not just wonder, change the cell and see what happens! There is deep neuroscience at work here. When you are in control and making up your own questions, you learn best. The beauty of this approach is that everything is alive and you can make points move and lines shift. Take full advantage.

Remember that you can always download the original workbook again if needed. This means you should not worry about changing anything in a workbook. If something goes terribly wrong, simply delete it and download it again.

There are many books devoted to microeconomics. This one is different because it is not meant to be simply read. A great deal of its value lies in the Excel workbooks and additional materials. By reading this book and working in Excel simultaneously, you will become a sophisticated user of Excel and learn a great deal of mathematics and, most importantly, economics.

Download the files from www.depauw.edu/learn/microexcel and get to work!

Spreadsheet History and Resources

For more on the history of the electronic spreadsheet, as told by one of the creators, see bricklin.com/visicalc.htm. This is the source for the epigraph.

I recommend these websites for Excel tips and tricks, workbook and add-in downloads, and Visual Basic code snippets:

• Tushar Mehta: www.tushar-mehta.com/excel/
• Chip Pearson: www.cpearson.com/excel
• Jon Peltier: peltiertech.com/Excel/
• Andy Pope: www.andypope.info