Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

How to format cells with "slashes"

All I am looking to is format my cells to be split from corner to corner. Nothing more but I am new to numbers and mac completely. How would I do this? Thanks

MBP 15", Mac OS X (10.6.6)

Posted on Feb 17, 2011 7:25 AM

Reply
19 replies

Feb 17, 2011 9:43 AM in response to Bill Westfall

Here's how I would go about making this effect...

In a blank Sheet or a blank page of a Pages document, Insert > Shape > rectangle.

Check the size of your cell by looking in the Table Inspector with the cell selected.

Now select the rectangle and in the Metrics Inspector, set the rectangle to exactly the same size as your cell measurement.

Now, Insert > Shape > line.

Stretch the line from corner to corner of your rectangle. Now it is the correct size for your cell. Now select only the rectangle and delete it. You now have a line with the correct angle for your cells.

Next we're going to make an image to place as background fill in your cells.

File Print > PDF > Open in Preview. You should see the diagonal there. Command + a few times to get the magnification up a bit and then drag the select tool such that you get most but not quite all of the line. If you select outside the line, you will notice it later. If you select just inside the line, you won't.

Now Command-C, Command-N, Command-C.

Next, select all your cells that need this background and Command-V.

That should do it.

Jerry

Feb 17, 2011 10:06 AM in response to Bill Westfall

As I wrote, there is no built-in way to do that.
I guess that inserting a line above each cell of this kind must be rejected.

You may mimic it creating a picture made of a white rectangle with the black diagonal and apply it as a cell's background.

You will have to insert the two values separated by several space characters so that they appear on both sides of the diagonal.
Do-able but not really satisfying.

So, I scanned the entire set of Unicode characters available.
Here is what I got.

User uploaded file

In row 2, the 'slash' is the character $2571.
What is interesting with it is this one is that it's never treated as a division symbol so what we get is what we typeD;
Every others are deciphered as a division symbol so, the app "reduce" what it see as a fraction.

In column E, I entered the formula =D
This one is an other way to show that only the first char may be used the safe way.
If you must do calculations upon the stored values, you will have to use LEFT and RIGHT functions to extract them.

From my point of view all of that simply show that it would be more efficient to use two columns to store your two values.

Yvan KOENIG (VALLAURIS, France) jeudi 17 février 2011 19:06:26

Feb 18, 2011 7:10 AM in response to KOENIG Yvan

Well, I'm trying to say that since the man didn't tell us exactly how he was going to use his document, it might be best not to second-guess his motives, but rather to just give him what he asks for.

It's possible that he never intends to type his final data into his forms, but rather to just pencil them in, for which the diagonally divided cell will work just fine. 😉

Jerry

Feb 21, 2011 9:54 AM in response to KOENIG Yvan

Another possible workaround (don't know if this will serve the requested need, but it's a shot...) would be to use four cells (yes, I know...clunky), in a 2 x 2 arrangement (no time for screenshots right now):

# /

/ #

...where # is a number value, and / is the diagonal line inserted as in the above posts. Assuming identical cells and turning off some of the internal borders, it would end up looking like one big slash mark, with (small) numbers shown as numerator and denominator, and both numbers could still be used in regular calculations.

Feb 21, 2011 12:34 PM in response to KOENIG Yvan

I did this one by vertically merging two rows, removing the border between the two columns, and using a line for the slash (though I notice I wasn't careful enough in positioning some of the slashes). I only did one "column" but the rest of the table would have been relatively simple with a few cut/pastes. The lefthand number is justified to the top, the righthand one is justified to the bottom. The numbers are in their own cells and can be used for statistical purposes, if desired.

User uploaded file

Feb 22, 2011 12:28 AM in response to Badunit

Badunit wrote:
I did this one by vertically merging two rows, removing the border between the two columns, and using a line for the slash (though I notice I wasn't careful enough in positioning some of the slashes).


Off the top of my head thought...

Not tried, but a variation of this technique might be to use a pair of "image fill" images in the sets of cells. This would take care of Yvan's concern regarding moving the table, but would probably have issues with resizing the cells and with pasting content from 'outside' sources.

Regards,
Barry

Feb 22, 2011 1:41 AM in response to Barry

Barry wrote:
Badunit wrote:
I did this one by vertically merging two rows, removing the border between the two columns, and using a line for the slash (though I notice I wasn't careful enough in positioning some of the slashes).


Off the top of my head thought...

Not tried, but a variation of this technique might be to use a pair of "image fill" images in the sets of cells. This would take care of Yvan's concern regarding moving the table, but would probably have issues with resizing the cells and with pasting content from 'outside' sources.


You are perfectly right, resizing the cell, or, more precisely changing the ratio height/width would give an odd result.

From my point of view, all these schemes seems really cumbersome.
Storing the values in two adjacent cells would be more efficient.

User uploaded file

The letters in red display which cell use the flagged alignment.
Cell B aligned to top
Cell C aligned to bottom
Cell D center aligned.

No side effects of merged cells,
no multiplication of rows so that we would be able to apply the same formulas in cells of a given column allowing the autofill feature to apply.

Here, in D is the formula =B/C

Yvan KOENIG (VALLAURIS, France) mardi 22 février 2011 10:40:21

Feb 22, 2011 6:55 PM in response to Bill Westfall

Hi,

I also have the need to do this. In MS PowerPoint under Windows, I made suc a table before:

User uploaded file


The formular in the sub-divisions of the top-left cell were put there in a very clumsy way, but in PowerPoint I can make those slashes. I was wondering if I can do that in iWork, or if there is a more advanced software which can make more complicated tables and then insert into iWork.

Much thanks!

How to format cells with "slashes"

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple ID.