Making data entry bliss

Make data entry even easier, and change cell color based on contents

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Numbers is an increasingly useful tool on iPad, capable of creating both simple and really complex spreadsheets, as well as basic (non–relational) databases. And as your knowledge of number crunching grows, so too does Numbers’ capabilities.

In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to do more with cells than simply record data or formulas. If you want to introduce restrictions to how data is input into specific cells — perhaps you’re creating a spreadsheet for someone else to use, for example — then Numbers makes it possible to control what’s entered into each cell in several different ways.

We’ll examine two of those in the step–by–step walkthroughs we’ve outlined — pop-up menus and sliders/ steppers. We’ll also take a look at the conditional formatting tool, which lets you change a cell’s color or style based on its value.

Finally, we’ll reveal how you can filter what rows or columns of your tables are displayed based on the values stored in each of the cells.