This is a question about the Histogram Data Analysis tool.

By default, Excel seems to apply some (unclear) heuristic
for determining the number of bins.

Is there an easy way for me to force the number of bins
to be N?

The operative word is "easy".

I know that the tool allows me to specify a "bin range",
a range of cells that specify the lower bound of each bin.

But that seems "hard" for me use because the range of data
cells change, based on the number of data points I want to
include in the histogram.

I might (please confirm) be able to assign an array name
to a data cell range, then constuct an N-cell bin range
that uses the min() and max() of the array name. By
reassigning the array name to different data cell ranges,
the bin range values should change automatically.

But it would be "easier" if the histogram tool allowed me
to simply specify the number of bins, and the tool computed
the lower bound based on the data range, as I would.

I am looking for something that "easy". Since the need
seems so "obvious" and "common", I suspect I am simply
failing to see how to do it.