Hi Martin, Excel is hugely powerful and can do all that and more - I've been using it for many years and still there are a huge amount of features, formulas etc that I haven't even touched on. Typically that's why some people find it harder to use - it's one thing to know Excel can do it but sometimes it's less than obvious how!
With more specific reference to your questions: 1) Yes, of course, you can have as many tables as you like on a page. A page in Excel is just a matrix of rows and columns - put a border around a selection of cells and you have a table - put a border around another selection of cells and you have a second table - you fill the relevant cells with data (text, numbers, dates etc) and create formulas in other cells to work with the data. 2) Yes Excel will cross-reference (link) between cells across multiple sheets and across multiple files (workbooks) - in fact you can combine all of these in a formula - ie a cell could contain a formula which referenced: - a cell in the same table - a cell in a different table on the same page (it's not another table to Excel, it's just a cell in a different location) - cells from different worksheets in the same workbook - cells from different worksheets in a different workbook In other words, it can reference cells from any combination of tables/worksheets/workbooks. I use this linking all the time - for example I create a Tax Workbook every year with separate worksheet for different areas eg one for share dividends, another for share capital gains, another for depreciation, another for deductions and so on (several more!) then I have a summary worksheet which basically just has the top level info needed for my tax return and which pulls all this info from the various detailed worksheets. So each tax year is covered by a single workbook containing multiple worksheets - but there is also info which needs to flow from year to year - for example on the depreciation worksheet, the closing value of one year carries over to become the opening value of the subsequent year - so this becomes a link between different workbooks. I looked at numbers a while back and although it can open Excel files and save in the Excel format I found that the conversion was far from transparent - eg If I opened one of my Excel files in numbers, saved it as a numbers file, re-opened it in numbers and saved it as an Excel file then re-opened this file in Excel it looked very different from my original file! So, yes, Excel will do what you want it to do but, given that your cutting lists are very simple (in terms of spreadsheet functions) and you have it all organised in numbers (which, as you say, is very intuitive) and given that you tried Excel a year ago and didn't enjoy it much - then why do you WANT to do it in Excel? I mean, I'm very happy staying with Excel because: - I have years of experience working with it - I have much time invested in many existing spreadsheets - I have to exchange spreadsheets with people (eg the accountants) who use Excel. However for anyone coming new to spreadsheets the only reasons I can think of to pick Excel over numbers would be: - you need to share spreadsheets frequently with Excel users - you need a more powerful set of tools including some not yet covered by numbers. HTH Cheers Neil -- Neil R. Houghton Albany, Western Australia Tel: +61 8 9841 6063 Email: n...@possumology.com on 19/11/09 8:50 AM, Martin Sulkowski at msulkow...@reachnet.com.au wrote: > > Hi Everyone > > I'm using numbers at the moment and would like to know if it is possible to do > the same thing in Excel or export it to excel and have the same formulas. > I use numbers for cuttinglists in cabinetmaking. > On one sheet I have different tables...one for length ,,,one for height....one > for depth ...in total 5 tables on one page > From these 5 tables the cuttinglists are created for all the cabinets. > > I tried to do a copy in excel but it looks so different. > The question is 1.: Does excel allow multiple tables on one page > 2. : Can i have another sheet with reference to the first sheet with all the > calculations? > > Thanks for all the answers Martin > > PS: Typical Apple numbers is so easy to learn and intuitive > Tried Excel a year ago , but did not enjoy it very much > > > > > -- The WA Macintosh User Group Mailing List -- > Archives - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/archives.shtml> > Guidelines - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/guidelines.shtml> > Unsubscribe - <mailto:wamug-unsubscr...@wamug.org.au> > -- The WA Macintosh User Group Mailing List -- Archives - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/archives.shtml> Guidelines - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/guidelines.shtml> Unsubscribe - <mailto:wamug-unsubscr...@wamug.org.au>
