StatOps

I've been meaning to post this for a while: Excel is a horrible way to store and transmit data. Let me explain further what I mean: when working with data, it's important that those data are not modified unless you want to modify them. Excel likes to tamper with whatever you insert into its cells unless they're text type, so something that may appear to Excel to be a date is irrevocably lost when Excel decides to corrupt it. Just another example of Microsoft-induced lossage (another rant altogether).

Excel is not a database. It doesn't preserve your data as you intended them to be. And while I'm at it, creating multiple tabs is not a substitute for some kind of indicator. Whenever I encounter data that is generally a mess and disorganized it has been sent to me as an Excel file. Excel is good at what it is, but it isn't, as I say, a database or a reliable means to transmit data to another party.

What tools do statisticians use?

If you're into free, you can try R,which is a command-based statistical package. It comes with the ability to do plotting, script-writing, and a variety of statistical tests. It does not offer a way to manipulate your data visually, however.

If you're desperate, you can use Microsoft Excel. If you want to do much beyond basic descriptive stats, you should look elsewhere, because you may have to program these in yourself.

The professionals with big budgets mostly use SPSS and SAS. $1500+ big, just for the core system. They both offer excellent raw data viewing and manipulation as well as advanced stat tests with many options. They work with very big datasets. SPSS stands for "Sweet Piece of Statistics Software."*