Excel Question

[riser]

A friend of mine asked me an excel question.. not sure how to do it.

He wants to be able to type in a number to a cell, ex. A1.

He enters 5. clicks off on B2 (or whatever) clicks back on A1, enters 7. He wants them to total 12.

He has a spreadsheet with a bunch of numbers where he goes through and just adds the amount changed.. any one have any idea on how one could do this?

 

[sturm]

why doesnt he just enter 12?
He would have to use some formula in a1 to add numbers input in 2 different cells:ie sum(b2,b3) or something like that. When he clicks back onto a1 hes just changing the value of that cell from 5 to 7.

 

[fishmahn]

Only thing I can think of is lots of VBA. I could see doing it with a few entry boxes, but each one is a lot of work...

You place a box over each cell and every time he presses enter or moves off the cell... bah, that won't work unless he's a mouser - I'm a keyboarder and you can't arrow to the box...

Ah, how about this:

Keep a copy of the sheet on a different sheet. When he enters a number into a cell, have it sum that on the 2nd sheet then replace the cell with the result.

Mike.

 

[riser]

Yeah I was thinking of referencing other cells but I'm not a fan of anything programming-wise anymore.
I told him it would be really messy to make it work and a little too complicated.

I didn't really ask what it was for.. I probably should because I have to imagine there is an easier way of doing whatever he's doing.

Thanks for the thoughts though. At least I can stop thinking about it knowing others think the same thing.

 

[fishmahn]

Yah, its a pain.

If I was doing it myself (the entry, that is), I would probably keyboard like crazy and automatically create the formula.

e.g. Blank cell: First entry: "=7" Enter.
Next entry: F2 "+5" Enter.
etc.

Of course, that's not what he wants because it requires more keystrokes.

Mike.