Numbers has a bizarre problem

problem with numbers spread sheet

When I select a cell then type my required formula of - 1/(cell a/cell b) this happens:

After I type 1 and then type the divide symbol it simply types the + again and again instead of the / (divide) sign. There is no explanation for this. I cannot use the divide / instruction because each time I press it it typed the + sign.

Also when I tried to write that same formula, instead of a cell reference of the cell address, say cell a1/a 2, there was a whole load of rubbish text instead of the name or address of the cell.

The text came from part of a heading at the top of the column where the cell address was a cell underneath that heading in that same column. I had written ‘cost including dealing charges’ in the column heading . The other part of the text had been taken from the text to the extreme left edge of the same row the cell address was in.

So my formula ended up looking like this:

=1+(COST INCLUDING Gulf Keystone Petroleum+'TOTAL CURRENT ' Gulf Keystone Petroleum)

When it should have looked like this: =1/(G6/I6) which when formatted to express a percentage results in 54.27%. i.e =1/(211.98/115.05)

I spent at least two hours trying to find out what was going on and why and how to remove this sillly unwanted text.

It was completely impossible to find out how to deal with it. It also rapidly became clear the numbers software was written so badly and by such an ignorant, ill educated and basically illiterate person, that is was a time consuming and utterly hopeless waste of time even trying to understand it. (or use ‘help’).

Nearly all the necessary explanations the idiots who had written the code which defined the functionality of this software were either impossible to find, time consuming to find or completely impossible to find at all; and sometimes, even if you did find them they were completely impossible to understand because the writer was so ill educated he was incapable of being able to properly communicate to users to explain what and how to deal with certain issues.

I would be grateful if you could provide an explanation of what is causing this bizarre problem.

The Apple numbers software has just completely appalled me. I have been using all previous Apple spreadsheets since my first Apple Mac Classic purchased in 1989 and every Mac computer model since then. I was last using the Snow Leopard OS Apple Spread sheet without any of the really bad problems I have now encountered with the truly horrible El Capitan OS.

This El Capitan Apple numbers spread sheet software is beyond appalling - it simply is not working and I am utterly disgusted at the incredibly bad quality of this Apple numbers software which is obviously completely unusable and totally, useless software. It is in legal terms entirely ‘unfit for purpose’. That means Apple has sold me a non functional and entirely useless product.

It is also the case that all the latest Apple software I am struggling to use with El Capitan is vastly less functional than the much older software I was using with Snow Leopard. There are a constant stream of immensely time consuming problems ocurring on a daily basis which really, really badly interfere with productivity.

I would like to make it crystal clear that this is not any kind of ‘technical issue’. It is not about ‘technophobia’. or about failing to have enough ‘technical knowledge’ to be able to use the software at all.

The only ‘technical’ part of software and computing as far as any end user is concerned is the computer code which programmers use to instruct the computer how to function. And as absolutely no end user ever needs to know anything about this technical issue of code and to be able to understand it, there is precisely nothing at all ‘technical’ about the ordinary ‘non technical’ person using computers.

The only real problem is the incompetently designed software and sheer illiteracy of instructions on how to use it.

A computer screen is simply a replacement for the pre-computer bits of paper everyone used to use. A computer screen is just a glorified electronically manipulated replacement for paper which can by dynamically be instructed by the user to change in many different ways by using a keyboard and pointing and clicking on a mouse.

But the mental deficiencies , lack of being able to be logical, utter and complete lack of any knowledge about graphic design at all, and the complete and comprehensive incapacity to be able to communicate intelligently with the end user of all those ignorant and mindlessly stupid software writers just takes my breath away.

There is a long standing conspiracy in the computer industry to produce rubbish software, often virtually unusable by any normal person, and then blame the end user for lack of sufficient ‘technical knowledge’ about computing and how to use computers and computer software.

There is no ‘technical knowledge’ at all that is required to enable a user to use a computer. All the problems end users have with using any software is caused by the incredibly stupid and ignorant manner in which software is ‘designed’ by very ill educated and useless people.

You have to be all of these things to be so stupid as to produce the software problems end users come across every day.

Yes, Stupid, in a word. Software is designed by ignorant and very, very stupid people.

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