What’s the next number in series?
I keep track of my books in a Numbers spreadsheet. In column D is a number for each book, which is the next number in series when the book was added to the sheet. Because the books are in alphabetical order by author, the numbers are not sequential. If I add a book by an author whose name begins with M, say, how can I find the next number in the sequence? Dave Burns So you’re just using column D as an index number for your collection, yes? There are two very easy solutions. You could use the function ‘MAX(D)+1’ to find the largest value in column D and increment it. If you put this in a cell above, below or to one side of your main book list, and label it ‘Next book number’, it’ll always tell you which number to use when adding an entry. Make sure you don’t put the function anywhere in column D, of course, or you’ll get an error.
The other way is to temporarily re-sort the sheet by index. Choose Table > Sort & Filter Options, and sort the entire sheet by column D. You can then add your new entry at the bottom with the next number in the sequence, and then sort on whatever column you use for author surnames.