For the novice spreadsheet enthusiast - or victim, depending on how you feel right now - here are some things you’ll need to know.
Numbers is Apple’s spreadsheet application.
Q: What is a “spreadsheet”?
A: A “spreadsheet” is a ledger, like an accounting ledger, consisting of one or more Rows and/or one or more Columns.
A spreadsheet with one Row or one Column is a one-dimensional spreadsheet. A list. A spreadsheet with more than one Row or Column is a two-dimensional spreadsheet. A table.
A Month Calendar is an example of a two-dimensional spreadsheet. It has a Column for each Weekday, and a Row for each Week (“Week 1”, “Week 2”, etc.).
A Year Calendar is an example of a three-dimensional spreadsheet - in addition to Rows and Columns, a year calendar also has Pages; one for each Month. Even though the pages may be thin, the Annual calendar has three dimensions: width, height, and depth; Columns, Rows, and Pages. If you threw a dart at a closed calendar, and hit the fifteenth of a month, the dart would pierce the fifteenth of all the other months as well.
< time for a bathroom break >Spreadsheet World is inhabited by Workbooks, which, like sketchbooks, contain Worksheets - blank space on which you can place Tables.
Tables are made up of Columns and Rows, and the intersection of a Column and a Row is called a Cell. Cells can hold information - “data” - that you enter.
In a calendar that begins on Monday, the second day of the 3rd week may be found at the intersection of Column 2 and Row 3. In a spreadsheet set up like a calendar, that would be the intersection of Column “B” and Row “3”. In spreadsheet parlance, the “cell” at that location would be “Cell (B3)”.
Unlike composition notebooks, spreadsheets can do math. They do it instantly, and never make a mistake. Ever. Spreadsheets can also make decisions, based on criteria you supply. And that, dear reader, is what makes them the tool of choice. If a spreadsheet where a hammer, it would be a 400-ton sledge.
In a spreadsheet, the “active cell” is the one that is currently selected. You can select a Cell by tapping or clicking on it (or pressing keys to move to it). You can select the contents of a cell by double-tapping or double-clicking on it, or by dragging across the contents while holding down the mouse button (“click-dragging”). To let you know a cell’s contents have been selected for editing, a light brown background appears behind them. Whenever you see a tan highlight behind a number or text, you can replace it by simply typing.
You can select more than one Cell at a time. A group of two or more cells is called a “Range”. A Range can be “referenced” (pointed to) in a number of ways. A group of Cells consisting of the second, and third cells in row2, and the second, and third cells in row3, may be referred to as “Cells (B2:C3)” (read as “cells B2 through C3”). That same group of cells may also be referenced by its “Range” designation - the top, left cell in the group, “Range (B2)”. You can even name a Range - “Fruit Prices”, for example.
To use the calendar analogy, “Cells (B2:C3)”, “Range (B2)”, and “Days Off” may refer to the same group of cells (Tuesday and Wednesday of Week2, and Tuesday and Wednesday of Week3).
But enough about spreadsheets. Let’s make an Income Table.
Numbers is Apple’s spreadsheet application. It can create multiple “instances" of a Workbook object, each of which may contain multiple Worksheet objects.
A Worksheet is a work space on which you may place one or more Tables. Tables can exchange information between sheets in the same workbook, or between workbooks. Replicating a worksheet, especially when the structure and formatting are known in advance, is easier and quicker than creating one from scratch - lucky for you.