How to make a formula repeat its action in every cell in a column in numbers?

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Level 1

20 points

How to make a formula repeat its action in every cell in a column in numbers?

I can't find an obvious way to make a column in my spreadsheet do the same calculation in each cell below.

Fo example I want the cells in column F to be the result of Column D-E. Then I want column G to be 33% of F. Then I want H to be 11% of F and J and K are to be a direct copy of column B.....

The only information I want to have to type into the cells in each row will be in columns B, D and E.

If I have to press the equals button in every cell on very row in every column and the go and poke each preceding cell, it negates using a spreadsheet.

How do I do this. I can't find the answers on internet (with apple calling this program numbers, you get miles of dross in your search reply).

What I want to do, I was able to do in Excel 10 years ago.

Please help. I am rather frustrated.

Sarah

Posted on Apr 21, 2019 3:48 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Yellowbox

Level 7

21,915 points

Apr 21, 2019 4:26 AM in response to KotukuT2469

Hi Sarah,

To copy (Fill) a formula down in a column, enter the formula in the first Body Cell (in this example, C2)

Click away from the table, then click on C2.

Hover the cursor over the bottom of C2 until you see a yellow dot

Drag the yellow dot down to fill the formula into that column.

For your next trick, try this.

Enter "seeds" to give Numbers a clue about your purpose.

Select the "seeds" and drag the yellow dot down.

Regards,

Ian.

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Answer 2

SGIII

Level 8

37,532 points

Apr 21, 2019 4:31 AM in response to KotukuT2469

You can do something like this:

I entered the formulas in row 2.

In F2:

=D2-E2

In G2:

=F2*33%

In

=J2 =B2

Then I selected the range F2:J2 as shown, and hovered the cursor over the bottom middle of the range until the yellow dot appears. I then dragged the yellow dot down to "fill" the formulas into the rows below.

At Help > Numbers Help in your menu you can search for "autofill" to get a fuller explanation of this.

If you're having trouble with the yellow dot you can also just copy and paste. Select F2:J2, command=c to copy, select the rows below, and command-v to paste.

SG

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Answer 3

KotukuT2469 Author

Level 1

20 points

Apr 23, 2019 7:14 PM in response to SGIII

Awesome thanks. I didn't realise it was the yellow dot to drag.

As a side note, the work around I found was copy each eqn to the cell below, then, I added rows above and that worked - albeit more time consuming than required!

Sarah

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How to make a formula repeat its action in every cell in a column in numbers?

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