Spinners - What IF

Spinners

I forgot to mention that down at the bottom of the blog, is a link to a video I did on Goalseek. Check it out when you get a chance. And don't forget to feed my little fishies....

Today, I wanted to talk about spinners. If I have time I will put some screen shots out on the different spinner steps but as usual I am behind schedule :)

A spinner, or Excel refers to it as a scroll bar sometimes, allows you to click and select different numbers. A spinner allows you to generate a large number of scenarios that vary each input between its high and low value. A spinner is a button that is linked to a given cell. As you click the spinner button the value of the linked cell changes and you can see the impact of these changes. This can be really useful if someone else is going to use the worksheet and is not very knowledgeable about Excel.

To create a spinner:
If the Developer tab is not available, display it by clicking on the Microsoft Office Button , and then click Excel Options. In the Popular category, under Top options for working with Excel, select the Show Developer tab in the Ribbon check box, and then click OK.

++If you are using Excel 2003, you would find the spinner button on the Form Toolbar. You can find the Form toolbar under the View menu.

1. On the Developer tab, in the Controls group, click Insert.
2.Under Form Controls, click Scroll bar .
3. Click the worksheet location where you want the upper-left corner of the scroll bar to appear.
4. Right-click and select Format Control
5. Select the values you want
6. Click OK
++ Please note that the maximum value cannot exceed 30000

For spinner control set the cell link to an adjacent cell on the form.
If the cell is locked, the spinner control will generate a warning when you use it after protecting the worksheet. Avoiding this problem is easy—with the worksheet unprotected, simply right-click on the cell associated with the spinner and choose Format Cells... Select the Protection tab and deselect the Locked checkbox. You can then protect the worksheet and use the spinner control without any problems.