Hello,
There are a couple of solutions available, if you're willing to pay or
roll up your sleeves a little bit. You don't mention which platform
you're using (Mac or Windows) or which version, but these solutions
should work for most recent versions of Excel, which have had random
number analysis tools for several years. My understanding from your
question was that you wanted (in your example) 30 numbers in random
order.
For $24.95, you can use Macro Systems' Random Number Generator tool,
(http://www.add-ins.com/random.htm). There isn't much in the way of
specifications for the macro, but it should work with Windows versions
of Excel. My research indicates that this is definitely the easiest
option.
If you are unwilling to pay, and have a little bit of numerical
understanding, you can use the built-in Excel ToolPak (under the
Tools) menu. It's not automatically installed with Excel, so you can
use the instructions (found, for example, at the bottom of this page:
http://www.vuse.vanderbilt.edu:8888/es130/lectures/lecture7/spreadnew.html
)
A good explanation of how to use Excel's Random Number Generator can
be found here:
http://www.vuse.vanderbilt.edu:8888/es130/lectures/lecture7/random.html
Perhaps a caveat is in order: this is not as simple or
straight-forward as it should be. If you aren't familiar with
statistics, I would avoid this.
If you just need the list of numbers, perhaps a web site can help.
http://www.pangloss.com/seidel/rnumber.cgi will generate the numbers
for you in any way you like, including tab and comma-delimited format
that you can then import into Excel. And it's free.
While this may not be precisely what you are looking for, you might
find it useful at some point. There is a random sequence generator
that will create a string of digits of any length, but they are digits
not decimal numbers. As a result, they will not be unique. You can
find this excel macro at
http://members.lycos.nl/excelsoftware/Files/excel_files.htm
Hope this helps you.
Search terms used:
Excel Random Generator
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Excel Random Number spreadsheet
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Excel Random Number template
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Ask.com
Create a Random Sequence with Excel (found no results)
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Create a Random Sequence with Excel
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Regards,
drjmetz-ga |