HMAUS Signal

Numbers ‘09 is Apple’s latest edition of a truly great spreadsheet application. Today Ross Rasmussen, in his low-key style led us through the Numbers interface and key features. Here are some of them.

• Spreadsheets are files with a single or multiple related Sheets.  “Sheets” are blank slates onto which you drop tables, graphs, graphics and text.
• Sheets and their contents – their tables, graphs and graphics, are listed in the left panel where you can easily click to navigate to them, or drag and drop to reorganize them.
• To add columns and rows drag  the corner tab at the end of a the header column or row or drag the right lower corner to increase both at once.
• Move the entire table by clicking and draggling it.  Remember, each sheet is a blank slate you add things to.  You can even copy and paste a table with formulas into Pages and the formulas will still work.  Edit the data in Pages and the calculation updates the data!
• Add photos or other graphics by dragging them from your iPhoto library. Drop them into an image placeholder to maintain the layout of your sheet.
• Drag and drop comma separated files or open an Excel file right into Numbers.  Export files to Number ‘09, 08, PDF, CSV or Excel.
• Speed inputting data with drop down menus with options you choose, increasing or decreasing the value with set increments or a slider or changing it to checkboxes.
• Copy a cell’s contents down or to the right by clicking the lower right corner and dragging.
  Copy two adjacent cells and drag the lower right corner to create an incremental series.  This works not only for numbers but also for letters, days of the week or months of the year!
• Create formulas by typing “=” to tell Numbers here’s a formula, then click in the cells building the formulas.  Instead of just the cell addresses, C1 + D1 Number color codes and displays the headers (labels) instead of cell addresses, for example (2009 Enrollees) – (2009 Withdrawals).

It was very cool!  But wait, there’s more.  Ross will offer Number 101.1 to go through other features we didn’t even get to.  The date and time are to be announced, but if you are interested in that workshop OR iWeb 2, complete the response form and let us know.  Please make sure you specify which workshop(s) you are interested in.

www.hmaus.org/meetings-workshops/maclearn/maclearn-registration

You can download a trial copy of iWork ’09 if you don’t have it so you can try it yourself! Hopefully iWork 10 will be out soon.

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Coming up next:  iWeb 2 on April 10!

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