Linking Cells Across Numbers Tables and Sheets

If you need to carry over the value of a cell from on table to another in Numbers, you can do that simply by including a formula that just references that other cell. There is no need to figure out the exact way to reference the original cell, as you can just click to grab the cell reference. The same technique can be used to reference a cell from a different sheet.


Video Transcript CLICK TO EXPAND
From time to time I get asked about Numbers, how do you put the value from a cell in one table into a cell in another table. Now it's very simple once you know the trick but it's kind of too simple so sometimes it's hard for people to see what the solution is. You know you can do formulas where you say you add two cells together. For instance I have two cells here with the values 3 and 6 in them. In this cell I can start a formula here. I'll do that with the equals key. Then I can click here, hit plus and click there. So B2 plus C2 and the result is 9.

But I could have done just one cell. So I could do equals here and just click there, B2, and stop there. Now what's there. Well, it's just the value of this cell. If I change this cell to something like 77 this other cell picks it right up. It works the same whether it's in the same table or not. So if I go in here and I hit equals, if I just click here to insert the value or the reference for that cell which in this case will be table 1::B2 then I get the same thing. If I change it here you can see it changes in both places.

Now it looks pretty complex to have this here but, you know, you can type that. You can go Table 1. It even gives you a little help there at the bottom. Then you do two colons and then I would look and see this is B2 and I can type it. But I don't have to. I can just click. So I can do equals click on that cell and it inserts it right away. So let's look at a more practical example here.

For instance, here is a sheet that has two tables in it. One table has Sales and it's got a total at the bottom. I want to then put that here where then a commission can be calculated and the total profit. So I just want to carry this value over here. So all I would do is click in there, hit equals, click there and you can see it inserts sales colon colon and then C13 and there I go. Whatever this value is it's going to be reflected here. So if I change one of these numbers here you can see it updates the total which then updates this cell as well.

I could have typed in this. I could have typed in Sales and you can see it's even going to help me down here. Then I could type in C13 and get the answer there. So I can type it in or it's just much easier to click to grab it like that.

Now this works across tables in the same sheet but it also works across sheets in the same way. So here I've got the same thing. I've put the results table here. I could then reference this cell the same way. I could go in here. I'm going to hit equals. Now I'm going to click here to switch sheets. I'm still entering a formula here. You can see I still have this floating formula I'm entering on the other sheet. I'm can click there and then I hit Return and it's going to return me to where I started. Where I was entering this formula in. You can see it actually grabs the number from the other sheet. It actually doesn't even need to include the sheet name in this because Sales is a unique title.

If I was using no titles then it would need to have the sheet. You can actually have better names than sheet 1 and sheet 2. I can actually double click in here, I have to dismiss this, double click in here and you can see I can name this Sheet One or something a little bit more descriptive here and then I can use that in a formula as well. So you don't have to leave these as sheet 1 and sheet 2.

But that's how you do it. That's how you can have a value simply linked to another cell in another table or another cell in a table in another sheet as well.

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