Tips for Running Regressions In Excel

I don't know why Excel has never added better support for regressions. The bottom line is that the regression tool in the Data Analysis ToolPak is frustrating to work with.

First, when entering data, avoid typing cell ranges by hand. Excel is "hyperactive" about that, and will often goof you up.

Instead of typing in ranges, you should click the button with the red arrow on the right, and use your mouse to highlight the data that you want.

Your Y range should be 1 column.

Your X range can be more than 1 column, but they should be adjacent to each other. Supposedly you can do columns that are not adjacent, but I've never been able to avoid problems, so it's just easier to group my columns together.

You can input your data ranges from rows, but the same rules apply.

The biggest source of errors at this point is that the length of the Y range and the X range are not the same.

The regression tool doesn't like empty cells, or cells with data errors.

If you click the "labels" checkbox, Excel interprets your first entry as the label.