Getting Started with Numbers on Mac: Lesson 1 – Accessible Table Layout & Editing

In this episode, Gaurav begins his journey into mastering spreadsheets with Apple’s free app, Numbers on Mac. 📊 Using an insightful AppleVis podcast as his guide, he learns how to open a spreadsheet and navigate it efficiently with VoiceOver.

If you're new to spreadsheets, Numbers is an ideal starting point—especially since it’s bundled with every Mac. It’s highly accessible for VoiceOver users and perfectly suited for basic tasks. While Microsoft Excel is the go-to for complex data analysis and advanced features, Numbers excels at simplicity and even lets you export files to Excel when needed.

In this episode, Gaurav sets up a basic quarterly budget sheet, placing categories like Food, Water, Transportation, and Internet in the first column, and January through March across the top. It’s a simple project, but rewarding—watching the structure take shape is a great introduction to working with data.

Choosing a Spreadsheet App

• Numbers: Free with every Mac as part of iWork.
• Excel: Part of Microsoft Office, offers robust data tools.

Accessibility & Usability

• Numbers is beginner-friendly and VoiceOver-optimized.
• Excel supports complex tasks like pivot tables and macros.

Getting Started in Numbers

• Launch with Command + Space, then type “Numbers”.
• Press Command + N to start a new spreadsheet.
• Choose a template using arrow keys, then Enter to select.

Interface Overview

• Sheet Navigator: Switch between spreadsheet pages.
• Format Panel: Adjust text, background color, and cell formats.
• Table Format Tools: Customize table layout and appearance.

Basic Keyboard Navigation

• Command + Up/Down Arrow: Jump to top or bottom.
• Command + Left/Right Arrow: Move to far left/right.
• Option + Enter: Begin editing a selected cell.

Creating a Budget Sheet

• Enter months across the top row using the Right Arrow.
• Add expense categories down the first column.
• Fill in amounts, pressing Enter after each entry.

Reviewing Your Work

• Use VoiceOver to check entries with VO + C (column header) and VO + R (row header).
• Confirm content cell by cell before finishing your session.

Transcript

Disclaimer: This transcript was generated by AI Note Taker – VoicePen, an AI-powered transcription app. It is not edited or formatted, and it may not accurately capture the speakers’ names, voices, or content.

Gaurav: Good morning, everyone. Today, I'm going to start a basic course on how to use the numbers spreadsheet application for the Mac. Right now, to start with, I just want to cover a few basic differences between choosing between numbers and Microsoft Excel. Now Numbers is the free spreadsheet application that comes bundled with every Mac. It is part of the iWorks suite of applications.

Gaurav: And Microsoft Excel is of course the spreadsheet application made by the Microsoft Corporation and part of the Microsoft Office suite of applications. Now, if you're using a Mac and you want to do basic spreadsheet editing, creation and viewing, then Numbers is a great option because Numbers is, in my opinion, more accessible and plays better with voiceover.

Gaurav: If you need to do advanced data modeling, pivot tables, or you need to use Visual Basic, or if you need to use other kind of coding or macros on top of your spreadsheet, then you will have to choose Microsoft Excel because Excel is a much more mature and advanced product. And that will allow you to do a lot more advanced work. formulas and has a lot more advanced features.

Gaurav: So that being said, if you're just a basic user and you need to do some basic things, then Numbers is a great option. If you need to switch between the two applications, if you do create a spreadsheet in Numbers, you can always have the choice of exporting it to an Excel compatible file to send it to your friends who may not be using Mac.

Gaurav: Alright, now with that out of the way, right now I'm just going to show you some basics of how to open up a numbers spreadsheet and the basic navigation and orientation of the app window. I'm going to open up Spotlight command space.

Gaurav/VoiceOver: And here I'm going to type numbers. U, M, B, D, R, Numbers S, Numbers App, Info Numbers, Finder, Desktop, pCloud Drive, Numbers, Open, Window.

Gaurav: Okay, Numbers is open. I'm going to press Command-Shift-Command-N to open a new command, plus N for new to open up a new spreadsheet.

Gaurav/VoiceOver: Window, Collection. You are currently on a collection inside of a scroll area. To begin interacting with the items in this list, press Caps Lock, Shift, Down Arrow. To stop interacting with this scroll area, press Caps Lock, Shift, Up Arrow.

Gaurav: All right. Now, what it's opened up is a dialog box containing different types of spreadsheet templates, which I can choose from as my starting point. I don't really want to do anything very complicated. And right now, the cursor is on the basic template. So I'm just going to hit enter to select the basic template and open it up.

VoiceOver: Untitled. Window. Table 1. 22 rows. 7 columns. Table. 1 cell selected. B2 empty cell.

Gaurav: All right. So now it's opened up a very basic spreadsheet. I'm going to use the Windows Sports menu. So I'm going to press V-O plus U for umbrella to open up the Windows Sports menu to just give you an idea of the different areas we have on the screen right now. V-O plus U. All right. We're on the Windows Sports menu.

Gaurav/VoiceOver: All right. Okay, four items. So first we have... Sheet Navigator Tab Group.

Gaurav: Sheet Navigator Tab Group. So this is a group of tabs which we can cycle through. In this case, we have multiple sheets in our numbers document. We'll come to that later, but just remember the Sheet Navigator allows you to switch between different sheets on your numbers document. I'm going to press down arrow.

VoiceOver: Sheet 1, white background layout area.

Gaurav/VoiceOver: Sheet one, white background layout area. So the sheet one is the name of our first sheet in the document. So if we were to enter into this area, we jump directly into the cells of the first spreadsheet in the document. Scroll area. Scroll area. This is the formatter. So if you use pages from Apple or Keynote, you will be familiar with this.

Gaurav: The formatter is where you can change the format, the background color, the font. And we can also do some interesting things specific to numbers, which is the sort and filter functions. We'll come to that. And if we go down once again in the Windows Sports menu, down arrow, Table formatter scroll area. So again, this is the table formatter which I just spoke about earlier.

Gaurav/VoiceOver: So these are the basic areas that you have on the numbers application layout. It's very similar to pages and it's very similar to Keynote in how the application window is laid out. All right, let's jump into, let's just go back up. Sheet one, white background. So let's just jump into the sheet.

Gaurav: Okay, we are now in the sheet.

Gaurav: Let's do some basic navigation. So if you want to jump to the topmost part of the sheet, you will press command plus up arrow. You hear it says column header cell. That means we're at the top of the spreadsheet. I'll explain to you what a column header is later. If you want to jump to the bottom of the spreadsheet or to the bottom of our set of data, we'll press command plus down arrow.

Gaurav/VoiceOver: Row 22 empty cell. So it jumped all the way down to row 22 right now, which is the bottom of our current spreadsheet. If we want to jump to the extreme right, just command plus right arrow. Column G, empty cell. If we want to jump to the extreme left, command plus left arrow. Column A, row header cell.

Gaurav: Now I want to just make sure, let's get back to the top left cell of the spreadsheet, which is cell A1. So I'm going to do command left arrow and then command up arrow.

VoiceOver: Column header cell, row header cell, cell A1.

Gaurav: A1. So now we're into cell A1 and we can start editing our spreadsheet. In order to do some basic edits, whenever you're on a cell that you would like to edit, you'll need to press option plus the enter key to get into the editing aspect of each cell. So today we're going to create a very basic spreadsheet. budgeting sheet for ourselves. And we're gonna use this sheet during the rest of our set of tutorials.

Gaurav: So what I'm gonna do is on A1, on B1, I'm gonna put. So I'm on A1 right now, I'm gonna press the right arrow. That gets me onto cell B1. I'm gonna press option plus enter to get into the editing cursor of the cell. I pressed option plus enter. I'm going to type January.

Gaurav/VoiceOver: January.

Gaurav: Now to get out of the editing, I'm going to press command plus enter.

Gaurav/VoiceOver: Okay, great. It says B1 January.

Gaurav: Now I'm out of the editing and I'm going to now go to the next cell C1. I'm going to press tab to go over to the next cell on the right.

VoiceOver: C1.

Gaurav: I'm going to press option plus enter again. I'm going to type Feb. I'm going to press command plus enter to again come out of the editing. I'm going to press tab to go over to cell D1. I'm going to press Option plus Enter. And type March.

Gaurav: Now, instead of pressing Command plus Enter to come out of the editing cursor, I'm just going to hit Enter this time. Okay.

Gaurav: I've hit Enter. I'm going to press V-O plus Shift plus T for Table to figure out which cell we've come into now.

Gaurav: b2 so whenever we hit enter after we've done editing a cell when we hit enter the cursor jumps back to the left side it goes one row down and goes all the way to the left side of the spreadsheet which will

Gaurav: it so now let's just explore what we have again I'm just going to press command left arrow and then command up arrow so that I know that I'm in cell A1 I'm just going to again keep pressing right arrow to make sure I have all my months January right arrow again B1

VoiceOver: February, column header cell, cell C1. February, cell C1. March, column header cell. March, cell D1.

Gaurav: Okay, so I have three months across the top of my table. I'm just going to create a basic budgeting sheet. So I have January, February, March. I'm going to press again command plus left arrow.

VoiceOver: Column header cell, row header cell, cell A1.

Gaurav: I'm back into cell A1. I'm going to come down one cell.

VoiceOver: Row header cell, cell A2.

Gaurav/VoiceOver: A2. Now in A2, I'm going to type So this is going to be my food budget for January. I'm going to hit enter. I'm into cell A3. So when we press enter, the enter key can have different navigation depending where you are. If you are not towards the last row or the rightmost row in a table, when you hit the enter key, the focus will jump to the cell directly below.

Gaurav: So when I was in cell A2 and I typed food as my category of things I want to budget, and I hit enter, it made me jump to the cell directly below. So I have food in cell A2. In cell A3, I'm going to type water.

Gaurav/VoiceOver: It's actually a bit of A. I'm going to hit enter to come to the cell below. A4. Okay. I've got food. I've got water.

Gaurav/VoiceOver: What else do I need? I need transportation. Transportation.

Gaurav/VoiceOver: I'm going to hit enter.

Gaurav: Okay. So now we have...

Gaurav: Three columns and three rows. I'm just gonna add one more row. Food, water, transportation, water, internet.

Gaurav: Okay, so now I have a bunch of rows down the side. On column A, I have... Let's just go one by one. I'm in the topmost left cell again. I'm going to hit the down arrow.

Gaurav/VoiceOver: Food. In A2, below that, water. Below that, transportation. **: Below that, internet. Okay, so that's down the left column. And along the top, on each column, I have January, February, March. OK, so we have a very basic layout here of how we're going to set up our budgeting for January, February, and March. So now we've created a very basic spreadsheet. We're going to fill in some of this data.

Gaurav: Again, let's hit Command-Left Arrow, Command-Up Arrow. And let's go along the top. We're going to hit now we're on cell A1. Just to be sure, I'm going to press V-O, Shift-P for table. OK, and it's announced that I'm in cell A1. I'm going to press left arrow.

Gaurav/VoiceOver: January. I'm going to press the down arrow. Food. So now I'm in cell B2. Yes, B2. So I'm in cell B2. If I want to hear the column header for this column, I'm going to press VO plus C. January. So I know I'm in the January column. And if I want to hear the row header for this cell, I'm going to press VO plus R for row. Food. Food.

Gaurav: So I know that I'm in the January column and in the food row. So for January, I want to make my budget for food $100. I'm going to press Option plus Enter.

VoiceOver: Empty word.

Gaurav: I'm gonna type 100. 13:41 100. I'm gonna press Command plus Enter to finish editing.

Gaurav: January, $100 for food. I'm gonna press the Enter key to come down one cell.

Gaurav/VoiceOver: water. So we're still in the January column. We hit enter to come down one row. We're in the water section. How much we want to spend on water in January. Let's press option. Press enter. Now we're in the editing field. I'm going to type 50. I'm going to hit enter to come down one row. One row, yes. And it says January. I'm not sure what... Row I'm in now.

Gaurav: So I'm going to press V-O plus R. Okay, I'm in the transportation section for January. I'm going to press V-O plus C just to make sure I'm in the January column. Okay, I'm in the January column. On transportation in January, how much do I want to spend? I'm going to press Option plus Enter. Option plus Enter. I'm going to type... 300.

Gaurav: I'm going to press command plus enter to finish editing. I'm going to press the down arrow. Internet. How much do I want to spend on internet in January? Okay, let's make this empty. Okay, I pressed option plus enter to enter into the editing area. I'm going to press 2200. Okay, great. So now we have set up some basic figures into our budgeting sheet for January. Let's explore this again.

Gaurav: VO plus left arrow, VO plus right arrow. And now we're into cell A1. Press VO shift T just to double check. Yes, we're in cell A1. Now let's press the right arrow to come into cell B1.

VoiceOver: January.

Gaurav: Now let's press the down arrows to go through all the numbers we have filled into our January budget. So down arrow.

VoiceOver: Food 100.

Gaurav: So you can see now that every time I press the down arrow, not only does it mention the figure I've typed into the cell, but it also mentions the column, the row header. So on the left side, it says food. So it says food 100. Let's press down arrow again. Water 50. So again, because...

Gaurav/VoiceOver: the first column is set up as a header row and the first row is set up as a header column it's always going to speak out these row and column header labels whenever we navigate in the sheet and this is one of the benefits of using voiceover um i'm going to press down arrow again transportation 300 transportation 300 i'm going to press down arrow again internet 20 internet 20. okay so those are the

Gaurav: figures or the budgets we have set for our budget in January. So now I'm just going to take a pause here. I'm going to end this recording here, allow you to create something similar of your own, and we'll be back next time and get into some further editing and navigation options on this very same spreadsheet. Thank you.

Gaurav: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.