MacLife - UK (2019-12)

SUMMARY SHEETS ARE

commonly used to pull

together information. In this

example, we’re pulling out

a subset of data from a table rather than

compiling a new table from multiple

sources, using a table of scores for a set of

participants in a monthly test. How can

we show each participant’s personal

progress? Creating a separate table or

sheet for every participant would mean

a lot of manual duplication. Instead, we

can make a single summary sheet that

will update with the data for any

participant we select.

We’ve used a separate sheet for two

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want to print or export by itself; secondly,

we can preserve a distinction between

Sheet 1, which is only for entering data,

and Sheet 2, which only outputs data. You

could use the same techniques with a

second table on Sheet 1, if you preferred,

and you can lock any table (Paintbrush >

Arrange > Lock) to prevent editing.

The key function is VLOOKUP, which

returns data from a row selected by

Summary sheet in Numbers

Extract data from a table with some handy multi–purpose tricks

searching the leftmost column of a range.

We’ll also use RANDBETWEEN to enter

some dummy data, which is helpful if

you’re creating a template for entering

data you don’t have yet. Just select the

cells and tap Delete to clear the table for

real data when you have it.

You could also add more data to the

chart in Sheet 2, such as a line showing

someone’s average score so far or the

average across all participants in each

test. ADAM BANKS

REQUIRES

iOS 12 or higher and

Numbers installed

and updated

YOU WILL LEARN

How to use VLOOKUP and

check boxes to auto–

generate a summary sheet

IT WILL TAKE

40 minutes

Names in Sheet 2 appear in the second column. To still

use as a header, tap the formatting brush, go to Table

> Headers & Footer and increase Header Columns to 2.

Create

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