Getting Started with Numbers on Mac: Lesson 5 - Basic Formulas

Gaurav is back with the next installment in our Numbers tutorial series, diving into one of the most essential spreadsheet skills: the SUM function. Whether you're tracking expenses or organizing data, learning to total values quickly is a must.

Quick Guide: Summing Your January Expenses

1. Select the Cell – Click the cell where you'd like the total to appear.
2. Start the Formula – Type = and then SU. Use the arrow keys to highlight SUM and press Enter.
3. Set the Range – Type your cell range, like B2:B5, and close with a ).
4. Finish – Hit Enter. Boom—your total is ready!

Want to Make a Change? Just press Option + Enter to jump into the formula editor, tweak your formula, and press Command + Enter to apply it.

Introduction to Basic Formulas

• Learn how to analyze and manage data with formulas
• Focus: Using the SUM function to total values easily

Using the SUM Function

• Adds up all values in a defined range
• Common use: Insert a “Total” row to sum a column’s data
• Enter the function where the total should appear

How to Enter the SUM Formula

• Navigate to the desired cell
• Press Option + Enter to begin editing
• Type = to start the formula
• Enter SU, then select SUM with the arrow keys

Inserting the Formula Example

• In cell B6, type: =SUM(B2:B5)
• Press Enter to apply and see the result

Editing a Formula

• Click the Total cell
• Press Option + Enter to enter edit mode
• Use arrow keys to move around and edit
• Press Command + Enter to save changes

Pro Tips

• Use larger ranges for more data, like B2:B1000
• Press Option + Enter anytime to reopen the formula editor
• Arrow keys let you fine-tune your formula line-by-line

Spreadsheet skills made simple—with Numbers on your Mac!

Transcript

Disclaimer: This transcript was generated by AI Note Taker – VoicePen, an AI-powered transcription app. It is not edited or formatted, and it may not accurately capture the speakers’ names, voices, or content.

Gaurav: okay folks so in this lesson we are now going to get into very basic formulas and formulas are very easy yet powerful methods of analyzing and playing around with our data. So today I'm going to use probably one of the most used function, which is the sum function. So it is a way of totaling all the values in a set of cells.

Gaurav: So what we're going to do is, again, jump back into our table.

Gaurav/VoiceOver: Food. Rowhead or cell? Cell. water row header cell transportation row header cell internet row header cell row header cell cell okay so we have all of our headings in the category headings in column a internet row…