Worksheet Function Sum Question

[MattG]

I am curious to know if I just have not located this or not, but I am hoping to be able to sum in a worksheet. Right now I have 7 rows of data. This is manually entered data in a spreadsheet form not data from a database. I am debating if I want to use this little template worksheet I've made on my future drawings but I am noticing a problem, the sum function in Vectorworks.

Right now if I understand correctly I can put in my eighth row a "=SUM(A1,A2,A3,A4,A5,A6,A7)" and I subsequently get the sum of these items. Now I am comparing this to Excel and I can just put "=SUM(A1:A7)" and get the same result. For what I envision using my worksheet for I am going to potentially see very large row counts and manually entering every cell in this manner would prove very tedious. Is there something I am missing to do this or is this "working as designed" and just not able to do what I want.

[michaelk]

You can use =SUM(A1..A7)

That will allow you to insert a row between 1 and 7 which will automatically change the formula to =SUM(A1..A8)

hth

mk

[michaelk]

Forgot to mention:

You can also drag the cells. Paste the sum function from the list. The cursor will be between the parenthesis. Drag from A1 to A7 (or A1 to C7) and the first cell, two dots, and the second cell will be entered in the formula bar.

mk

[MattG]

Very cool thanks. That was what I was looking to do. It is still a little counter intuitive compared to working in Excel, but at least it can perform that function.

Thanks as usual for the worksheet help. :0)

[Pat Stanford]

It only looks like Excel, not acts like Excel.

The other "similar" function to Excel that I miss/use is Fill Down/Paste.

With Fill Down in Excel you can copy data and/or formulas from the first selected cell to all the ones below it. (There are also Fill Up, Fill Right, Fill Left, but they don't have default keyboard shortcuts).

You can get a similar function in Worksheets by Copying the data and then selecting the range and pasting. VW will fill every selected cell with the data where Excel would give you a warning that copy and paste area are different sizes.

If you Copy more than one cell, it will paste the entire group (repeating as necessary) into the selected area.

[MattG]

I think that is the problem unfortunately. Because it looks so similar to excel but doesn't act the same as excel it can lead to large amounts of frustration. I am of the believe that if it is going to resemble something we already know that much it should act very similar to it.

I miss the fill handle to do the operations like you mentioned where you can just pull down and have a function repeat for the new cell. I appreciate the ideas for workarounds, just annoying that they are not actually able to perform actions in a similar manner.