Formula Trouble

Spakles3891 · Newbie Joined: 31 Oct 2006 Posts: 1 Location: Jenison, MI

While I understand how to apply a formula, I cannot figure out how to make a formula that applies to my entire document.

I have a spreadsheet I use to log daily funds received (A), funds disbursed (B), checkbook balance (C), checks held (D), and true balance (E). Two formulas are needed: The first is to take the prior days bank balance (C), add the funds received (A), and deduct the funds disbursed (B). The second is to take the current days checkbook balance (C) and add the checks held (D) to acheive the true balance (E).

I can insert these formulas individually, manually typing them in, but I would like to learn how to apply the formula to the whole speadsheet, so (as in formula 2) that in every line, E=C+D. That seems easier than formula 1, which is C2=C1+A2-B2 or C3=C2+A3-B3.

If anyone can help me I would greatly appreciate it.

Amber

Corfy · Posted: Tue Oct 31, 2006 6:33 am Post subject:

If you highlight (as in your example), E2 and copy it, you can paste that into E3, E4, ect., and the numbers will auto-increment for you. That way, you only have to type in the formula once.

Then, once you have a number of cells like that (if I need a lot, I usually work with increments of 10), you can copy a large number of them and paste them, and the numbers will again automatically increment. The numbers will automatically increase/decrease as you copy and paste up or down, the columns will automatically increase/decrease as you go left and write.

If you have a situation where you don't want the number to increment (in other words, you want to factor in one specific cell into your calculations so that reference won't change), put a "$" in front of the Cell number (or the Cell Letter, if you prefer, or both).
_________________
Laugh at life or life will laugh at you.

will_b · General User Joined: 22 Sep 2006 Posts: 8

So if I understand right, you want each value in column E to be equal to the sum of the corresponding C and D values.

So, E1 is '=C1+D1', which is entered manually. If you then want E2 to be '=C2+D2', E134 to be '=C134+D134', you have two options: if you click on E1, notice a little black square in the bottom left corner of the cell. If you click and drag this square down then all the formulae will copy correctly. Or you can select all the cells you want to copy the formula to, as well as E1, then go to 'Edit - fill - down'. Either way will give you incremented formulae.

You can apply the same principle to the other column.