Creating formulas in Numbers - quick key to reference cells

As Yvan has pointed out, Numbers offers an alternative to large spreadsheets, that being multiple tables & sheets. As you point out, moving around a large spreadsheet is not fast, even when using cursor keys (which I am assuming are the same thing as arrow keys, there being just the one set on my keyboard).

Assuming you can break your large spreadsheets down into smaller ones, you may find that navigation is remarkably quick because you can click on any table in any sheet to immediately jump to another one (even when creating cell or range references) rather than having to transverse large areas of a single spreadsheet one cell at a time.

If you are interested in exploring this approach, you may find my comments in the thread Generating values for grades useful as a description of how this can be applied when creating cell references in Numbers.

It may not be the right approach for your needs, but unless you know about it, you can't compare it to other approaches, right?

Numbers doesn't support referencing cells with the arrow keys. You can still type "=" in a cell to initiate a formula. If you're adding numerous cells together, then if you type "=" and click on each individual cell it will automatically insert them and put the plus sign between them by default. You don't need to hold any keys to select multiple cells, and you don't need to type in the plus signs.

Apple engineers aren't Xerox photocopiers.

They study a problem, define a way to treat it and code the beast.
Sometimes they adopt known protocols, sometimes they don't and sometimes they "invent" new ways to do this or that.

Remember the slogan "Think different".

If we are unable to live with a feature available in the tool distributed by xyz, the best thing to do is to stay with this tool.

As I often wote, this forum proves that we live in a free world. I may write this kind of thing here and was never censored.

Yvan KOENIG (from FRANCE jeudi 19 juin 2008 14:40:46)

MarcmCT wrote:
The fact is, Numbers is completely useless for any true hardcore spreadsheet user without being able to quickly create formulas via the arrow keys.

Why? Does it really take longer, *on the average*, to click on a cell to reference it than to navigate to it with the cursor keys, or is it perhaps that it just seems that way because one way is more familiar than the other to some "true hardcore" users?

You are thinking the XL way.

Comparing Numbers to other spreadsheets is meaningless. They are different approach of number crunching.

Numbers is not designed for large sheets, it is designed for small linked tables.

Given that, from my point of view, trying to work with it the way you did in XL is sad.

You will always hit a wall for this or that reason.
The first one is, of course, the missing of many functions() required in the named area: finance job.

Yvan KOENIG (from FRANCE dimanche 22 juin 2008 17:30:37)

I do not believe you can do this with Numbers.

Regards,

do a search on the boards for "use arrows in formulas" and you get this question answered many times in the previous year.

Jason

Thanks RC-R.

Your practice of English gave you the ability to respond with a better wording than I am able to do.

Yvan KOENIG (from FRANCE dimanche 22 juin 2008 10:21:53)