Adding Random Noise to Data in Excel
1. Select the column of data that you want to add noise to.
2. Go to the
Data tab in the ribbon and click on
Data Analysis. (Note: If you don't see "Data Analysis" in the ribbon, you may need to enable it by going to "File" "Options" "Add-ins" "Excel Add-ins" "Analysis ToolPak" "OK").
3. In the
Data Analysis dialog box, select
Random Number Generation and click
OK.
4. In the
Random Number Generation dialog box, select
Normal for the distribution and enter a mean of
0 and a standard deviation of the amount of noise you want to add. You can experiment with different standard deviations to see what looks best.
5. Select the
Output Range where you want the random numbers to be generated. Make sure to select a range that is the same size as your original data.
6. Click
OK to generate the random numbers.
7. Finally, add the random numbers to your original data by selecting the range where you want the new data to be and entering the formula
Code:
=original data + random numbers
. This will add the random numbers to your original data without moving the original data points to a different bin.