Sum formula in Numbers on Mac

By Jurgen, 26 October, 2024

Forum
macOS and Mac Apps

I’m creating a column with values in Numbers on my Mac. Then, I add a sum formula below it. It works well. However, if I extend this column later on with additional rows and add more values, it often feels like a gamble whether the sum formula still includes them or not. I often work around this by simply adding a new sum formula, which then works for a while. But that can’t be the solution, right?

Do any of you know this problem, or is it just me sitting in front of the screen again?

Thanks for your answers and best regards,
Jürgen

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Comments

By TheBllindGuy07 on Monday, October 28, 2024 - 17:25

Speaking of Numbers, apple recently solved a very annoying bugs, basically now clicking on a sell with vo space will allow you to edit it placing the cursor at the end of the text, which wasn't the case on ventura, sonoma and probably way before that too. Before the only way was to root the mouse to the cell, vo shift space and hope it works.

But if I want to change something in a long formula, how do I actually navigate in the formula, assuming it's possible? My understanding is that voiceover can't navigate inside math content in iwork or native apps unlike it does on web, and I have reported this issue to apple too. And my guess then is that it's because of this bug that it's impossible to edit part of the formula instead of reerazing and restarting from scratch.
Correct me if I am wrong!

By Brian on Monday, October 28, 2024 - 17:25

Sadly it has been a long time since I used Numbers for anything. Used to use it quite a bit in college, during my Financial Accounting and Managerial Accounting courses, and I believe I used it in Statistics as well. Back then, you could use VO + space to focus into a cell and just start typing. Unsure when this changed? As for editing Formulai, I believe it, used, to be possible to interact within the formula and just edit as needed.

Again, it has been years, we are talking pre-Big Sur, so i am sure things have changed... 🙃

By TheBllindGuy07 on Monday, October 28, 2024 - 17:25

Yeah you are right we can in fact just arrow on a blank cell (or if want to override a cell's content) and start typing it will work.
No interacting in formula to edit parts of it doesn't work anymore, and interacting within math content altogether doesn't work and we end up hearing the full expression or nothing, no sequencial navigation like with mathml on the web.

By Brian on Monday, October 28, 2024 - 17:25

That sounds absolutely awful. Yeah, I don't know how students are getting along with iWork apps these days. Back when I was in college, the only real issues were with Pages to Word conversions. Even then it was not as bad as it seems to be reported these days. ☹

By TheBllindGuy07 on Monday, October 28, 2024 - 17:25

Now you understand why there is so much negativity around macos on this site and probably elsewhere?
I have mentioned on another thread how the table are shown in a veri weird order in pages when we are at the body level in a page in document layout.
But Sequoia at least is changing things. We no longer have this bug of voiceover reading all the full formatting once in awhile when doing option left/right arrow or announcing body or whatever the current text style is randomly disrupting reading in a horrible way. They 90% patched this on Sequoia.

By Brian on Monday, October 28, 2024 - 17:25

Yeah, I stopped using my MBP as of March of this year, when my VR Counselor purchased a Windows 11 PC for me for my Certification program. I honestly haven't looked back, but to keep things in context of this thread, let us just say that I am well aware of the shortcomings of the more recent renditions of macOS. 😣

By Jurgen on Monday, October 28, 2024 - 17:25

I'm sorry, I think I couldn't express my problem clearly enough. @Brian: I work with formulas and know how to add them. But often they do not update automatically when I add more cells between the last value and the formula. That's my difficulty. @TheBllindGuy07: If you want to change a formula in detail, select the entire formula, copy it to the clipboard and paste it into a document in Textedit. There you can see all the conditions and change them. Then copy the changed formula back into Numbers after you delete the original formula.

By Brian on Monday, October 28, 2024 - 17:25

Hi Jurgen,

I understood what you meant. I am sorry that I did not know how to fix the situation, however. Typically, your formula should automatically update, as you add more data into your column/row. If that is not the case, then it sounds like an application issue, and nothing to do with accessibility.