Comments on: MacMost Now 255: Using Spreadsheet Formulas in iWork Numbers

By: Gary Rosenzweig

Gary Rosenzweig — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 04:03:11 +0000

Have you seen episode 258? That may help you: http://macmost.com/using-multiple-tables-in-iwork-numbers.html

By: Beth

Beth — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 02:22:24 +0000

Great videos, Gary! Thank you. I have created a Numbers receipt, a Numbers chart for inventory totals by day, month, year. And, a Numbers end-of-day sales total sheet with additional tax, inventory use, etc. type totals. Is there a way to get them to work together? I am currently gathering totals in my receipts and manually putting them in the sales sheet, then separating specific data into separate charts. And can you create a numbered receipt that numbers automatically?

By: Gary Rosenzweig

Gary Rosenzweig — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 04:06:00 +0000

You just have to re-check everything. Look at the formula and run it through in your mind. If you are still having trouble then perhaps seek out some first-hand help from a friend that know spreadsheets.

By: joe

joe — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 02:48:15 +0000

Hello Gary,
I’m trying to do an employee schudule using the template from Numbers and i’m having trouble with the formulas getting messed up when i try to change the time, for example I have people come in to work at 4:30 but there is no option, so when I change it messes up the total hours worked and so on? Do you have any ideas?
Thank You!
Joe

By: Gary Rosenzweig

Gary Rosenzweig — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 15:32:40 +0000

You don’t need to use a function for that. If you have two dates in A1 and A2, then simply =A2-A1 gives you the answer.
The date format doesn’t matter. The date is either right or wrong. Change the cell formatting to show month, day, year (January 18, 2012) to check to make sure the date is right.

By: Susan Palmer

Susan Palmer — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 14:59:45 +0000

I want to subtract two dates to obtain the number of days between those dates. I have used =DATEDIF(A7,A8,”D”) but the number of days is incorrect. I am using the UK system of dates, ie dd/mm/yy, and have formatted the cells using this date system. The result of the calculation has obviously been done using the American system of dates, ie mm/dd/yy. Whilst I would prefer not to have to use this system (being British, I find it confusing!!), but I did try to change System Preferences to re-format the date, but it didn’t seem to make any difference. Do you have any advice please.

By: Ted

Ted — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 16:48:15 +0000

Thank you!

By: Gary Rosenzweig

Gary Rosenzweig — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 16:44:24 +0000

It sounds like you have changed the formatting for the cell to a format that uses percentages. Simply change the format back to a standard number format.

By: Ted

Ted — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 16:39:05 +0000

Thanks for your quick response Gary. For some reason when I do that, the following is displayed in the cell: 18,668.00%. I find that result quite confusing.

By: Gary Rosenzweig

Gary Rosenzweig — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 16:33:03 +0000

Just do what you said: multiple it by 0.13. So if the cell above is F72, then the formula is F73 would be =F72*0.13

By: Ted

Ted — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 16:23:17 +0000

How do I do percentages like taxes? I have a cell that is a subtotal and I want the cell below to multiply it by 0.13. I’m new to Numbers and formulas. Could you please write an example of a percentage formula? Thanks.

By: Gary Rosenzweig

Gary Rosenzweig — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 13:52:29 +0000

Use footer rows. The footer row should have the sum formula. Then create a normal row above that and the footer row’s formula will expand to include that new row. See episode 475: http://macmost.com/adding-up-amounts-in-iwork-numbers.html

By: Chris

Chris — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 06:26:37 +0000

I’ve been banging my head against this wall for a while and wondered if anyone knew the trick: If I have six columns of figures representing daily results (e.g. rows show days, columns show say Area A sales, Area B sales etc). Each new day, a new row is created. At the bottom of the spreadsheet I have a row that shows say Amount to Target and is simply Target Value-Latest Result.

What I need to know is how to get the latest value from a column of figures to use in my formula without needing to manually update references each time a new row is created. It wouldn’t necessarily be the max or the min as figures go up and down.

Thanks in advance!

By: Gary Rosenzweig

Gary Rosenzweig — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 19:31:15 +0000

That exact formula works fine for me.

By: Matt

Matt — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 19:11:43 +0000

Gary,

If I have this formula:

=IF((b2=”Yes”),40,0) The formula won’t recognize yes or no. Is there a way to get the formula to recognize a string of text?

Thanks,

Matt

By: Coralie

Coralie — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 01:48:50 +0000

Thanks!

By: Gary Rosenzweig

Gary Rosenzweig — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 01:21:47 +0000

Yes. That’s exactly what I am suggesting. Use the IF function. See episode 557: http://macmost.com/if-statements-and-checkboxes-in-iwork-numbers.html

By: Coralie

Coralie — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 01:20:16 +0000

Gary,

Thanks for the quick response.

There may be more than 1 vote in the E, F or G columns, none of which should be counted if the H isn’t checked.Is there a way to say for column E: sum of only numbers in column E where H is also checked?

By: Gary Rosenzweig

Gary Rosenzweig — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 22:58:27 +0000

Use an IF statement in a new column. It gets a 1 if E is yes and H is checked. A 0 otherwise. Then sum up this column.

By: Coralie

Coralie — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 22:38:49 +0000

Hi Gary,

I have created a (election) spreadsheet that has three columns of amounts- yes(E), no(F) and abstain(G). Each one of those columns gets a number when I receive a ballot. Then I have a fourth column(H) that is conditional- a box that is checked if the ballot is eligible for the election. How do I write a formula that calculates only the sum of yes votes(E) that have been checked in column H?

By: Andrew

Andrew — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 21:45:44 +0000

Thank you very much!

By: Gary Rosenzweig

Gary Rosenzweig — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 13:42:32 +0000

When you are creating a formula, there is the “Fx” button in the toolbar. Click on that and you have tons of info about what is available. In this case, look under logical statements for AND. You’ll see that the solution is:
=IF( AND(B6=0,B5=0), TRUE, FALSE)
For coloring, you don’t do that in formulas, but you can set “conditional formatting” for the cell in addition to the formula. Format, Show Conditional Format Rules.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 13:34:36 +0000

I actually figured out my last question. But my new question is:
Using the sample above, can I abbreviate it by saying IF(B6=0 and B5=0,”-”,”•”)?
I would like to use more than one criteria to display a certain output. I figured out how to write the last problem I asked, but it turned into a parenthesis nightmare.

Also is there a way on if statements to display a different color for the True and False outputs?

Thanks again for the help.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 08:10:05 +0000

Hi Gary, I hope you can help me with formatting IF, THEN statements.

I am using % increases for metrics in my business. I come across one particular metric that frequently = 0 from Last year, and makes dividing constantly undefined.

here is my if, then Question for block C6

IF B6=0 and B5>0, Then C6=100
IF B6>0 and B5=0, Then C6=-100
IF B6>0 and B5>0, Then C6=((B5-B6)/B6)*100

How do I write that? Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks

By: Marco

Marco — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 16:31:45 +0000

Perfect. Thanks! I just changed the “Alert” text to be a big “X”, and changed to font color of that column to be red. That way, I can have a nice, tiny column inserted in various places that will give me a red X when there is an error. Thanks again!!

By: Gary Rosenzweig

Gary Rosenzweig — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 16:01:04 +0000

=IF(C1=A1-B1,”",”ALERT!!!”)

By: Marco

Marco — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 15:52:44 +0000

AH! The ‘alert’ trick would work great! Could you give me a sample formula? Thanks!!!!!!

By: Gary Rosenzweig

Gary Rosenzweig — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 15:50:43 +0000

Conditional Formatting, I see. In that case you just have to create another column. So you have A1, B1 and C1. D1 would have the formula =A1-B1. Then you can use conditional formatting on either C1 or D1 to change it to red if it is not equal to the other.
Another option would be to put a formula into D1 that puts a message (“ALERT!”) there if C1 isn’t A1-B1 and a blank there (“”) if it is fine.

By: Marco

Marco — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 15:25:49 +0000

Oh…in the conditional formatting box, I click on C1 and then choose “Not Equal To”, and then click in the long formula box directly to the right, and then click to choose A1, and finally change the formatting to red. It will apply a rule that simply changes the text color of the value of C1 to red if it doesn’t match A1. What I would like to be able to do is, instead of only being able to choose A1 as the “not equal to” selection, I would like to choose (A1)-(B2). Unfortunately, Numbers doesn’t let us use a SUM as an option for a conditional. :(

By: Gary Rosenzweig

Gary Rosenzweig — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 14:33:47 +0000

You say “I can easily have the color of C1 change to red if it doesn’t match A1″ — how? I don’t know what you are using to do that. Maybe I can find a way to extend that if I knew.
Otherwise, why not create a 4th column. Use that to calculate the difference. Then match C against that column.