Table “Formulas”

Most of the calculations that we can perform in “Excel”, can be performed in “Word”.
We do this by inserting “Formulas”.
“Formulas” are calculations with the values that are inserted into cells in our table.
“Formulas” always begin with an “equals” (=) sign.
“Formulas” consist of cell addresses from which they get their information to do the calculations.
A cell address is a location of a cell in a table.
Those who are accustomed to working with “Excel”, will know what I’m talking about, but for those who have never heard about a spreadsheet, I will just try to explain.
In our table, we have columns and rows.
You must imagine that each column is represented by a letter.
Thus, the first column lists A, B of the second, the third C, and so on, and so on.
And each row is represented by a number.
The first row is 1, second 2, third 3, etc., and so on.
The point of intersection of a column of a row is thus a cell, like what we have seen in Les 15.
Thus, the cell containing the point of intersection of the fourth column (D) with the third row (3) is cell D3.

“Formulas” cannot be manually entered as in “Excel”, they must be used in the “Formula” dialog box.
The cell in which we have placed our “Formula” will always show the result of the calculation and not the “Formula” itself.

Insert “Formulas” in a “Table”

When we want to enter a “Formula” in a cell, we first place our cursor in the cell and choose “Table” – “Formula” in the menu bar.
This opens the “Formula” dialog:

As you see in the upper textbox of the dialog box, “Word” will propose what it thinks we want to calculate. Our cursor is positioned in the cell A5, so in this case the sum of the upper cells is proposed.
Had we placed the cursor in cell E1, then the sum of the cells to the left would have been proposed, “Formula” = SUM (LEFT).
Click OK if you accept it.

In the second textbox “Number Format” ( “Number Format” In the third textbox “Paste Function” (“Paste function”), we choose the action that we want to execute.
If you are not satisfied with the formula “Word” proposed, you can manually adjust the “Formula” in the “Formula” (“Formula:”) dialog.

In a “Formula” we can use the terms “left” “right”, “above” and “below” to refer to the cells next to, above or below the “Formula”.
We can enter a cell range for the “Formula”.
In this case we type the cell address of the first cell, a colon (:), and the cell address of the last cell, example: = SUM (A1: A4)

But what about the word SUM, in our “Formula”?
If we just want to edit our “Formula” we can use operations such as SUM, AVERAGE, MAX, MIN, plus a lot of other, and we do not have to type in all the cell addresses.
We find this all in the dropdown menu next to the textbox “Paste Function” (“Paste function”).
To change the “Formula”, for example, SUM to AVERAGE,
delete everything after the = sign in the “Formula”.
Click on the drop-down arrow “Paste function” (“Paste function”) and choose AVERAGE
Type your range of cells in the place of (above) the brackets.

If we have a “Formula” with several operations we can manually enter in the “Formula” box.
For example for the calculation of VAT on a product:

Update “Formulas”

When we make changes in our cells in which calculations are performed, we need the field to update the “Formula” also.
It’s not like in “Excel”, when you change a cell, the result is automatically adjusted.
To do this, we select the cell containing the “Formula”, and click the F9 key on our keyboard.
A second possibility is, right-click the cell, and select “Field Update” (“Field Update”) from the pop-up menu.

If we wish to update all “Formulas”, select the entire table, and click the F9 key on your keyboard. Or you use the right-click method.

See “Formulas” and results

When we have created a table with several cells with “Formulas”, it may be difficult to remember which cells have a “Formula” and which do not.
To see the “Formula” in a cell, select the cell, and click “Shift” “F9” key on your keyboard.
To see all “Formulas” in your table, select the table and click “Shift” “F9” key on your keyboard.
To switch back to the normal view, repeat these steps.

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