David Howes
Level 1 (0 points)

Q: Numbers 3.0.1 Differences

This question may have been already posted, but I cannot track it down.

 

I have just moved to Mavericks and Numbers 3.0.1   Prior to the move, Numbers would provide a useful 'prompt' list of possible values from cells when adding data in the same column. This does not appear to be there any more, and I cannot find if it can be switched on.

 

Has this facility been dropped, and if so why?

MacBook (13-inch Aluminum Late 2008), Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Dec 8, 2013 3:26 AM

by David Howes,Solvedanswer
David Howes David Howes
Level 1 (0 points)
A:

That's good news, but the question has to be asked - who makes such stupid decisions?

Posted on Dec 8, 2013 5:14 AM

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David Howes

Q: Numbers 3.0.1 Differences

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  • Helpful answers

  • by Badunit,

    Badunit Badunit Dec 8, 2013 4:33 AM in response to David Howes
    Level 6 (11,705 points)
    iTunes
    Dec 8, 2013 4:33 AM in response to David Howes

    It was dropped. It is supposed to be added back in.

     

    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT6049

  • by David Howes,Solvedanswer

    David Howes David Howes Dec 8, 2013 5:14 AM in response to Badunit
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 8, 2013 5:14 AM in response to Badunit

    That's good news, but the question has to be asked - who makes such stupid decisions?

  • by SGIII,

    SGIII SGIII Dec 8, 2013 9:10 AM in response to David Howes
    Level 6 (10,796 points)
    Mac OS X
    Dec 8, 2013 9:10 AM in response to David Howes

    Hi David,

     

    Even after "auto-complete" is brought back you might want to consider formatting the cells in the column as Pop-Up Menu if you frequently enter repeating values in a column and don't want to type the same text over and over again.

     

    In many situations, particularly if you want to avoid typos or capitalization inconsistencies creeping in and messing up your data, Pop-Up Menu is better than "auto-complete." It is much enhanced over what it was in Numbers 2.3, and is easy to set up:

     

    pop-up-choose-format.png

     

    Select the whole column or range before formatting as Pop-Up Menu and your existing values in that column or range will pre-populate a menu automatically:

     

     

    pop-up-format-column.png

     

     

    Then you can remove the values you don't want in the list, such as the column header (and possibly some previous spelling errors too!):

     

    pop-up-remove-item.png

     

     

    And after this easy one-time setup all you have to do thereafter is to choose from the pop-up list when you add rows:

    pop-up-choose.png

     

     

    See this post for more details on how this handy feature has been enhanced in Numbers 3.0.

     

    In Numbers 3.0 there is no keyboard shortcut to activate the menu such as hitting the spacebar in the old Numbers (hope they'll add one in upcoming versions).

     

    And should you ever want to take your Numbers with you and do data entry on an iPad or iPhone, in a touch interface, pop-ups are much more efficient than typing the first few letters of items. You can scroll with ease through a list of dozens of items to make a pick. Anybody using Numbers cross-platform should favor Pop-Up so they can use their documents efficiently for data input on the go, which can be a productivity booster.

     

    Also, auto-complete is not as good a choice as Pop-Up Menu even for keyboard-intensive work on the Mac if you've got numerous hard-to-spell values, particularly if some are capitalized and some not, where the capitalization can be significant. The Pop-Up Menu approach, unlike auto-complete, eliminates spelling inconsistencies or lack of capitalization when there should be capitalization, etc.

     

    See this thread for this and other workarounds for Numbers 3.0.

     

    SG