The tool is not available, but from a description I looked at, it appears possible to construct the actual table, provided you know the formula in use.
The example in the description I saw was for calculation of loan payments necessary to discharge a specific loan amount over a specific amount of time under varying rates of interest. You can download the .doc file
from here, and open it in Pages.
The example was a 30,000 dollar loan at 10% over a five year period.
The base (Excel) formula was = PMT (D2/12, D3*12, -D1), which, according to the illustration yielded a result of $637. This was apparently rounded to the nearer dollar, as Numbers' result with the same formula (with cell references adjusted downward to allow for the header row in a Numbers table) was $637.41.
The description than went on to describe a "One-way Data Table" constructed using the data Table function.
Here's the same thing, constructed in Numbers.
The initial data are in D2, D3 and D4 (labels in column B), D5 contains the formula
= PMT (D3/12, D4*12, -D2)
Which calculates the monthly payment.
Below, in yellow, is a One-way Data Table, in which the interest rate (in C10 through C19) is varied in half percent increments, and the resulting payment is calculated in D10 through D19.
The formula is the same as above, but the cell references are changed:
Original: = PMT (D3/12, D4*12, -D2)
Revised: = PMT ($C/12,$D$4*12, -$D$2)
The interest rate is now taken from column C. The Amount and Term are still taken from D2 and D4 respectively, but because we are going to fill this formula down column D from row 10 to 19, the $ operators are inserted to fix the reference to this specific cell.
The blue section (plus the interest rates in column C) form what Excel calls a Two-way Data Table.
Again, the formula in E10 is the same, but with a second revision. The Term of the loan is now taken from row 9, rather than from D4.
2nd Revision (taken from E10): = PMT ($C/12,E$9*12, -$D$2)
Because we want the cell reference to E9 to change as we fill the formula to the right, but remain the same as we fill it down, only the ROW part of the reference is fixed.
The formula now picks up the Rate from column C and the Term from row 9, and returns the monthly payment. Amounts in this part of the table have been set to display only to the nearer whole number.
So, no, the tool to build these tables automatically is not available in Numbers, but if you know the formula to use, both types of data table are easily built (in far less time than it takes to describe the process).
Regards,
Barry
