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Letters as part of a value in Numbers

I need to express a value in numbers that uses a letter as well as a digit(a school report) example English 6a math 5c art 5b ect and then make a chart from the data.i cant find a way for numbers to recognise that “a” is a higher value than “b” and adjust the chart accordingly. Can anyone help?
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Chills

Comments: 6 Responses to “Letters as part of a value in Numbers”

    13 years ago

    What are the values of the cells, exactly? If I enter in cells "English 5c" and then English "5b" and then "English 5a" and then I sort them alphabetically, I get them in a, b, c order. So it does recognize them correctly.

      chills
      13 years ago

      hi gary, made my point badly, I,m trying to create a series E.g spring10 summer 10 ect with results such as english 5c(spring) 5b(summer) when i select the cells for a chart the chart only recognises the digit. I need it to see 5b as a higher value than 5c and depict this on say a bar chart.Also can the cart show alpa numeric value on an axis label and can you edit the data point settings to show alpa numeric also.
      regards chills

        13 years ago

        I'm still not getting it. What are the cells? Are they "English 5c (spring)" or are they individual cells like "English" and then "5c" and then "(spring)".
        I assume you mean the cells contain just "5c" right? I don't think you'll get Numbers (or any spreadsheet) to recognize that as a number, as it isn't a number.
        Perhaps you can use substitute numbers like A1=11, B2=22, 5A=51, etc. Then use those in the chart somehow.
        Maybe have one column be "5" and the next be "A" and then the one after that "51" to represent the value.
        It really depends on what you are trying to do, which I don't understand, so it is hard for me to help.

    chills
    13 years ago

    I think you kinda nailed it! the spread sheet cant recognise an alpha numeric value. ie the value 5a will not produce a longer line on a bar chart than the value 1c. Do we concur?
    either way I'd like to thank you for the help and such a great site/news letter/video,s and all. Great job!
    thanks again Chills

    Bob Rosenboom
    12 years ago

    I'm trying to average response times for a Fire Dept. the spreadsheet displays times like 21m or 2h 15m can that be averaged? I get all arguments must use same type of unit.
    Thanks for the hel

      12 years ago

      Yes. Just simply set the format of the cells involved to "duration."

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