How do I view Numbers formulas?
How do I view formulas in Numbers spreadsheets, so I can copy them from month to month? or Year to Year?
iMac Line (2012 and Later)
Question marked as
Hi MABM,
Click once on a cell containing a formula.
The cell will continue to display the result calculated by the formula.
At the bottom of the document window, you will see a bar containing the lable "Formula," and beside it the formula in the selected cell:
In the Table(s) cells referenced by the formula will be highlighted with the highlight colour matching the colours of the cell reference tokens in the formula.
OR
Double click on a cell containing a formula to open the Formula Editor and show the formula.
The bar at the bottom of the document window will now display the formula's result. Highlighting of cells in the tables) will remain as before.
To COPY the formula:
After clicking once to select the cell, you can press command-C to copy the cell, including the formula and any formatting to the cell.
If the formula contains 'relative' cell references (as this one does) the location of the referenced cell relative to the location of the cell containing the formula will be preserved when the cell and formula are pasted into a new location.
In this formula the A2 reference is to "the cell on the same row and one column to the left of 'this cell' (where 'this cell' is the cell containing the formula).
The columns reference also relative, and refers to 'this column' to the next column to the right of 'this column' in the Table named "Rates"
After double-clicking the cell to open the Formula Editor, you can press command A to select All of the content of the editor (ie. the formula), then press command-C to copy the formula as it is in the editor for 'this cell'.
This copies only the formula, and not the cell or any formatting applied to the result.
When pasted into another cell, the formula in the pasted cell will be an exact copy of the one copied from the Editor, still referencing cell A2 (of 'this table') and columns A to B of "Rates" no matter what cell it has been pasted into.
(The reference to "Rates" will fail if it is pasted into a cell in a different document.)
Regards,
Barry