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Repeating A Formula Across a Range of Cells

Apologies, made the mistake of switching to a Mac. Reasonable excel competence but numbers is absolutely hellish. I just want to repeat my formula instead of manual input each cell. I've trawled this site for answers. I've tried dragging from the corner of the cell. I've tried c & p'ing formula. Absolute exasperated. Also, why can't I edit the formula at the bottom of the page? It's static/greyed out. Please help the muppet show thanks.

MacBook Pro 15”, macOS 10.14

Posted on Jul 30, 2020 8:45 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Jul 31, 2020 5:01 AM

Hi breedh,


The yellow dot is the Fill Handle. You can fill down, up, left or right. Hover the cursor over the edge of the cell in the direction you want to fill. When you see the yellow dot, drag it. Here is an example of filling a formula in C2 =B2*2 down a column.



The display on the bottom left of the window is not the formula editor. It is simply a display of a single cell's contents (first screen shot) or some statistics for a range of cells (second screen shot).


Just to confuse you further, you enter the multiplication operator as (*) and Numbers changes it to the multiplication symbol (×) not to be confused with a lower case x.

Enter a division operator as (/) and Numbers changes it to the division symbol (÷) which, at first sight, looks like a plus sign until you get used to it.

Just like a calculator:


Regards,

Ian.

2 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jul 31, 2020 5:01 AM in response to Nomadibility

Hi breedh,


The yellow dot is the Fill Handle. You can fill down, up, left or right. Hover the cursor over the edge of the cell in the direction you want to fill. When you see the yellow dot, drag it. Here is an example of filling a formula in C2 =B2*2 down a column.



The display on the bottom left of the window is not the formula editor. It is simply a display of a single cell's contents (first screen shot) or some statistics for a range of cells (second screen shot).


Just to confuse you further, you enter the multiplication operator as (*) and Numbers changes it to the multiplication symbol (×) not to be confused with a lower case x.

Enter a division operator as (/) and Numbers changes it to the division symbol (÷) which, at first sight, looks like a plus sign until you get used to it.

Just like a calculator:


Regards,

Ian.

Jul 31, 2020 5:57 PM in response to Nomadibility

An alternate method to fill a formula into a range of cells is this:


  • Click on the first cell to select it. Press = to open the Formula Editor.
  • Enter the formula into the editor, then click the green checkmark to confirm the entry and close the editor.
  • With the cell still selected, press command-C to Copy.
  • With the cell still selected, scroll to the last cell of the range where you want to place the formula.
  • Press and hold the Shift key and click on the cell. Shift-click adds all cells between the originally selected one and the cell clicked on to the selection.
  • Press command-V to paste the formula into all of the selected cells.


Regards,

Barry


PS: the Numbers users in this community do welcome questions, and are usually pretty quick in responding to them.

That's also true of the other communities in this collection.

Feel free to ask.

B.

Repeating A Formula Across a Range of Cells

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