Consolidating charts

Well, there are manuals, to be sure, but I don't like using manuals on the screen, and I'm not ready to print the 225 pages that one manual contains. I thought it would be easier to get started in the right direction. If you had said, for example, that it is impossible to prepare a chart with 200+ rows, I would have just had to accept that and work with what is possible. However, you say that it is possible, so now I know that I won't be wasting my time by looking for something that doesn't exist. As to sending a screenshot, I'll try, but it seems to me that I have never been able to post something like that here. Here goes.

Well, at least I did better than I have in the past. This chart has all the names, but it's missing the numbers 1 through 45 to the left of the names, and it's missing the years at the top of the columns. I might add that I keep misplacing the years. Sometimes they're there, and sometimes not. .

Maybe "Numbers" is not what I should using. I started with "Page," but it seemed to me that "Numbers" would be better for my job. Now a friend is telling me that I should use "Database". Isn't "Numbers" a "Database"?

That's the kind of advice I needed, alhough it would have been more helpful if you had said how to add a row. No matter, I discovered how, and I'm now on my way to 223 rows click-by-click. However, it occurs to me that there might be a faster way to add many rows. What does that symbol that looks like a wishbone mean? It's right in front of a down arrow, and I assume that by clicking on the arrow at the same time as some other key, the progress would be continuous.

I can no longer combine the five tables I had already made, because I somehow lost all of the content of one of them when I was trying to do something with it. I did find it once, but then I lost it again and was unable to recover it again. Well, I'm now going back to add a hundred or so more rows.

Well, I guess there are no shortcuts. I just lost that 223-row table I had spent so much time creating, and I don't know how to get it back. There are just too many ways to go wrong. I'm quitting for the day (this is tiring work), but I'll be back tomorrow to watch tutorial videos and to copy appropriate pages from the manual. Exchanging messages at this level is just not helpful. I'm closing this case for now. Perhaps after I learn more, I'll be back.

Badunit wrote:

Reading through the user's manual will definitely teach you faster than clicking things randomly.

I finally reachd that conclusion after my growing list of questions made me call a halt to my flailing around. Why do my tables keep disappearing? Why do the numbers in the leftmost column disappear? Why did all of my column titles disappear? Why do my tables keep being broken up? Why do my sheet names disappear, and where do they go? Why did my sheet name relocate itself to the 173rd row from where it can't be removed? On and on. More and more problems that needed answers. Finally, I realized that I was just getting in deeper and deeper with no relief in sight. ENOUGH!

Wayne Contello wrote:

Niku,

Numbers is not MS Excel. The row/column headers disappear when you deselect a table-- as they are only necessary when you are editing a table.

I'm not sure that I understand. I need those headings; they form an integral part of the table. The table would have very limited--no, it would be worthless--if the years at the top were to be deleted.

I decided to try something simple this morning before sitting down with the manual: I moved the Years-row down one notch, so that it is now below the template horizontal letters. Here's the result:

Unfortunately, I'm only allowed to be successful in short spurts, and when I started losing things again, I decided to be content with this one victory and hit the books.

Okay, Badunit, I now know enough now to publish my first chart and send it to my Yahoo group. I've prepared the table the way I want it, and now I just have type in the two hundred twenty-three singer names and the number of recordings each singer made in a particular year, and that'll be it. Just some typing, and no more mysterious losses. My next project will be to type the names of approximately two hundred songs and the names of all of the singers who sang those songs in the period from 1920 to 1934, This will range from one to, say, eighteen. I want the easiest way to do this. Would it be possible to have two parallel lists (singers and songs) so that I could just drag the singers to the appropriate song? Or, maybe there's a better way. While I'm waiting, I'll finish with the first project.

Okay, Badunit, I've finished my two projects, and now I need a little advice to make some corrections in them. One project is 118 pages. Fortunately, because of its format, I don't think I'll have any problems making corrections here and there.The 18-page table is a different story. Based upon my experience with "Numbers," I expect a great deal of difficulty. To illustrate my point, think of how you trash a file. The most common way is probably just to drag it to the trash can. I don't do that anymore, I find it a very poor method that requires more coordination and finger dexterity than I can depend on. I won't mention all of the problems that that method can cause, but using the Right-Click>Trash method never causes any problems. Well, with "Numbers" I know that I can drag words and lines around, but I then have the same problems, and more, than the Drag>Trash method oftentimes leads to. I need a way to move words and lines around on a "Numbers" table that is equivalent to the Right-Click>Trash method. One thing I'll need to be doing is to add several lines to the table I have already prepared. Unfortunately, that always leads to disappearing words, or lines, or sometimes whole pages. I don't want to do that any more. Is there a safer method? Here's part of the 18-page table that I expect to be a problem.