In this episode of the AppleVis Podcast, Gaurav is back with Lesson 3 in his series on mastering spreadsheets with Numbers, Apple’s free spreadsheet app for Mac.
Today, he’ll continue working with our monthly budget spreadsheet and dive into two powerful time-saving tools: Autofill and the Quick Calculation Bar.
First, we’ve already completed the budget for January and February. Now, instead of re-entering all the data for March, we’ll use Autofill to do the work for us. Just head over to the March column, open the Autofill menu, and like magic, your February values are copied into March in a flash.
Next up is the Quick Calculation Bar – a handy feature that gives you instant stats just by selecting your data. Whether you need a total, average, or want to find the highest or lowest value in a range, this tool has you covered with zero extra steps.
Key Features Covered
Autofill
- Quickly copies values across multiple cells.
- Demonstrated by filling March’s budget with February’s data using the Autofill tool.
Quick Calculation Bar
- Instantly displays summaries like sum, average, minimum, maximum, and count for any selected range.
- No formulas required.
How-To Steps
Using Autofill:
- Select the cell range from the previous month (e.g., February).
- Open the Autofill menu.
- Apply the data to the next column (e.g., March).
Using the Quick Calculation Bar:
- Select any range of cells.
- The summary (sum, average, min, max, count) appears automatically at the bottom of the window.
Recap
In this lesson, you learned how to:
- Use Autofill to speed up repetitive data entry.
- Leverage the Quick Calculation Bar for fast data insights.
Give these tools a try and see how much smoother your budgeting becomes. Happy spreadsheeting!
Would you like a visual handout version of this for reference or teaching?
In this episode of the AppleVis Podcast, Gaurav returns with the third lesson in his series on mastering spreadsheets using Apple’s free app, Numbers for Mac.
Welcome to Lesson 3 on mastering numbers! Today, he diving back into our monthly budget spreadsheet to explore some nifty features that will save you time and effort: Autofill and Quick Calculation Bar.
First, if you remember, he already filled out our budget for January and February, and now we're moving on to March. Instead of manually copying the values from February, we'll use the Autofill feature to make it a breeze! Simply navigate to the March column, use the autofill menu, and voilà, your data from February is neatly copied over to March.
Next, let's talk about the Quick Calculation Bar – a powerful tool for quick insights. Whether it's calculating totals, averages, or finding the minimum and maximum values, this feature does it all by just selecting your data range.
Autofill: Quickly duplicate values across multiple cells with ease. Quick Calculation Bar: Instantly access totals, averages, min, max, and more for selected ranges.
These features are perfect for simplifying tasks, especially when dealing with large data sets in Numbers. Give them a try and watch your productivity soar!
Lessons on Numbers Feature Overview
Autofill Menu
- Used for quickly filling out values in multiple cells.
- Demonstrated by filling March values with February's using autofill from the column before.
Quick Calculation Bar
- Allows quick summary calculations on selected cells.
- Provides sum, average, minimum, maximum, and count of selected cells.
Application Steps
Autofill Application
- Select the initial cell range.
- Use menu options to autofill from the previous month.
Quick Calculation Usage
- Select desired cell range.
- Access quick calculation bar for sum, average, min, max, and count outputs.
Recap
- How to use the autofill and quick calculation features in Numbers.
Happy budgeting!
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: Hello everyone. So welcome to lesson three in this set of lessons on numbers. Now I'm back up in our numbers spreadsheet into the monthly budget that we were creating. And I'm going to show you two things today. I'm going to show you how to use the autofill menu and how to use the quick sum or the quick calculations bar.
Gaurav: So first, if you remember, we had filled out the budget for January and for February. And now we need to fill it out for March as well. So let's go over to...
Gaurav: We're in D1, which is the column header cell for March. And what I want to do is for March, I want to quickly fill out the same values what I've done for February. Now, of course, one way is to just go into February and see what were the values for February and fill out the same ones for March. But there's a quicker option built into numbers, which is helpful when we want to autofill a lot of cells at the same time.
Gaurav/VoiceOver: So what we'll do is we'll go to March. I'll come into the first column, the first row in March which I need to fill out. Food, empty cells. So what I'm going to do is I want to fill out the next four or five cells the same as what we filled out for February. So I'm going to hold the shift key And then I'm going to press down arrow to select the next row.
Gaurav: And I'm going to press down arrow again.
Gaurav: So now I've selected cells D2 to D6.
Gaurav/VoicdeOver: And I want to make sure that whatever we filled out for Feb gets copied into the March column. So I'm going to hit VO plus M for menu. I'm going to keep going right until I hear table. Okay, table. I'm going to go down. Auto fill cell, submenu. Here I want to hit the right arrow.
VoiceOver: Autofill left, dim. Autofill down. You are current. Autofill up. Autofill from row above. Dim command option. Autofill from column before command control. Backslash.
Gaurav: Okay, autofill from column before. So since the February column has the values which I want to copy, and I want to copy them into the March column, I'm going to select this option, which is autofill from the column before. I'm going to hit enter.
VoiceOver: Empty cell. Actions available. March. Column header cell.
Gaurav/VoiceOver: Now I'm going to see, I'm going to go into this March column header and column and see what it's done. March, let's go down. Food 150, is that what we had for February? Let's check. February, yes, is 150. That's the correct one. March. Now let's see what it has for the next. Water 30 for March. Let's see what it said for February. Yes, February 30. So as you can see, it has now filled in all the values for March.
Gaurav: just the same as it was for February, and we just needed to use a very simple feature of numbers in order to do that. Of course, right now we have very few cells that have filled out information, but if you want to do this for, let's say, 100 rows at the same time or 100 columns at the same time, then this feature is very, very useful. So this is the autofill feature. The next feature I'm going to show you is called the quick calculation bar. How do we use that?
Gaurav: Well, we can do very quick calculations on a bunch of things. So I'm going to go back into the March column. Now I want to know the total of all of the items that we're going to be spending money on in our budget in March. So I've got the March. I'm here in March.
Gaurav/VoiceOver: I'm gonna press option, shift, down arrow to select all of the cells in the March column. Option, shift, down arrow.
VoiceOver: D2 through D9, added to selection, D1.
Gaurav: D2 through D9, sorry.
VoiceOver: Through March, 150.
Gaurav: I'm in the first cell containing our budget in March, so that's D2.
VoiceOver: March, 150.
Gaurav: I'm gonna press VO, shift, down arrow to select all the cells below that and add it to the selection.
VoiceOver: D3 through D9, added to selection. D2 through D9, selected.
Gaurav: D2 through D9 selected. And now what's going to happen, once you've selected a bunch of cells, sighted people can see this. There's something called a quick calculation bar. Of course, we are not able to see it. So we have to use the item chooser to get to this bar. I'm going to hit VO plus I for item. Now I'm going to type in the word COUNTA, which stands for count all.
VoiceOver: Count all.
Gaurav: I'm going to hit VO plus space to enter into this. Now we're in the quick calculation bar. which is a bar that runs some quick calculations on any cells which we have selected. I'm going to press VO plus left arrow a few times to get to the left side of the bar.
Gaurav: Okay, now I'm on the left side of the bar. Now I'm going to VO plus right arrow.
VoiceOver: Sum 195.
Gaurav: So the sum or the total of all of the cells which we have selected so far, which are all the cells in the March column, has a total sum of 195. I'm gonna hit View plus right arrow again.
VoiceOver: Average. Average.
Gaurav: 48.75 is the average of all of the data we filled into March. So for each of the cells, each of the four or five cells which we filled out, 48.75 is the average. V equals right arrow again.
Gaurav/VoiceOver: Min, minimum. Five, so five is the minimum amount we've filled into any cell in March. Max, 150.
Gaurav: Count A, which stands for count all. It will count the number of columns that we've selected.
VoiceOver: Four, so four rows have been selected.
Gaurav: and it has a sum total of 195, a minimum of 5, and a maximum of 150 from all of the cells which we have selected. Again, this is very helpful for us to run any quick calculations to do a total, to check the minimum, maximum, or to count the number of cells that have been selected in a range.
Gaurav: So the quick calculation bar, just to recap, can be reached by pressing VO plus I for item chooser and then typing COUNTA, C-O-U-N-T-A, hitting enter, and then you'll be sent into the quick calculation bar. So just to recap all of this entire lesson, I showed you how to use the autofill feature and I showed you how to use the quick calculation feature in Numbers. Hope this was helpful.