I thought I was onto an excellent way to re-use cell formulas - but came up against the named function editor being determined to mangle anything I entered into absolute cell references - so I couldn't drag cells containing my named formula and have it use relative references internally
eg., $C2 became $C$2 so all rows referred to the same data on the same row
do I need to mangle things and treat my formula as text, somehow find the row or range in which the formula is being called and dig out the row etc etc
disappointing after an hour or so....
Relative cell references are handled by using Function parameters
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1wzBC1D58q585tX5GYLO_BIS8LSSc22h5DcPFnKZ2fp0/edit?usp=sharing
Related
I've searched a bit for this issue and maybe I can get help here.
I'm trying to apply a conditional formatting through a named range and I only figured out that "Indirect" plays an huge role on this.
This is the typical table I'm working on, Heading, plus every row has a name with some notes. The table has a named range (Let's call it "Table") assigned to A1:D7 because I have some scripts on GAS that sort the list in different ways based on button pressing.
Since the table is updated pretty often, I just add rows to the "Table" Named range, so the script works fine.
Under the table the typical conditional formatting I use to color the zero or negative cells of both the column B and C but not the column D
Now what I have to do is to apply the whole conditional formatting on only the named range (but just the columns B and C).
I could "Apply to the range" B:C (So I don't have to change it) but under the table there are some other numeric data that I don't want to format.
Using a custom formula =INDIRECT("Table")<=0
doesn't work either since the table has the column Name, plus with some arrangements it colors both the cells B* and C* if the B value is negative and the C is not.
I'll probably add some more stuff since I'm working on it but if someone could aid just on this it would be very helpful
Browsing a bit and understanding that the Conditional formatting just cycle every cell in the range applied and uses the custom formula to check if it should format it or not, I should put it the fact that the cell has to be inside the named range as a condition.
I found this to be useful on a "B2:C" range =AND(NOT(ISERROR(INDEX(INDIRECT("Table"),ROW(B2),COLUMN(B2)))),*condition1_on_B2*,*condition2_on_B2*,*etc*)
(found it on the second post here on this link)
The first conditions returns true when the cell is not inside the named range
NOT to reverse the ISERROR value
ISERROR will return true if INDEX throws an error which is only when the cell is outside the named range
INDEX will attempt to find the cell B2 (or the cell the conditional formatting is checking on every iteration) inside the named range.
It probably is very heavy, performance-wise but for now it works, if there is something else, I'll wait for a better answer.
I'm reformatting a sheet so I can utilise the data for some graphs. The existing formatting is a bit clunky to "transpose" to the required format, so I'm trying to figure out an easier way.
"Graphs" tab should transpose specific data from the "Statistics" tab - as can be seen. I'm trying to avoid creating manual cell references for the "Decks" column and instead extract the Col reference from the formula, increment it by 3, thus creating the next cell reference.
My attempt can be seen in A9.
I've tried googling how I can reference formula in a cell on a RIGHT function, but the keyword is giving a tonne of results that don't address my issue.
Here's the sheet!
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1VKUhiwRGFMJOtDbLc0pqpckHFV7oNB2bjTqs2WqTqbo/edit?usp=sharing
=TRANSPOSE(FILTER(Statistics!H1:1, Statistics!H1:1<>""))
I've searched for hours and couldn't find an answer to the following problem:
I have two sheets, Blue and Red.
I want Blue!A1 to be "exactly" like Red!A1 but I find this problem:
Red!A1 contains "B1+B2", both are Red's cells.
However, when I write Blue!A1 like this: "=Red!A1", the return value is something like "=Red!B1 + Red!B2", and not the "=CurrentSheet!B1 + CurrentSheet!B2"
My problem is that I cannot reference the Blue sheet in the Red one because I want dozens of sheets referencing Red in the same way, so when I change A1 in Red I change all the other sheets' A1 accordingly with their respectives B1s and B2s, not Red's B1 and B2.
I want to have a cell in a sheet which can be referenced by any other cell in any other sheet exactly like it was in the first place.
For instance, if I have a cell which contains =B1+B2 in a sheet, I want to reference it in another sheet in a way that the new =B1+B2 references the current sheet's B1 and B2 cells instead of the former one's.
Can someone help me to solve this problem?
Thank you in advance
Alexandre Trajano
Solution 1
Copy & Paste.
In Google Sheets, copy & paste iterates the formula automatically. If you change sheet, it will change the referenced cells to point to the current sheet; if you change location within the same sheet, it will shift the cell references according to how many columns and rows you shifted.
In contrast, cut & paste will move the formula without iterating the cell references.
Solution 2
If you have a truly large number of sheets you want to create based on a template and don't want to c&p a thousand times, you can use Apps Script.
In particular, you will need
Spreadsheet App to create and access new sheets; and
Functions that manipulate cells here.
You can enter the formula via Apps Script as strings.
For example, say you want cell A1 to have formula B1+C1 in a tab named "Sheet1". You can do the following.
var sheet = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet();
var tab = sheet.getSheetByName('Sheet1');
sheet.setActiveSheet(tab);
var cell = tab.getRange(1, 1); // The arguments are the row and column indices of A1, respectively.
cell.setValue('=B1+C1');
There are many things you can do here with the basic template. You can generate sheets based on some naming convention. You can generate formula based on the cell position. You can create a script that fills in the formula upon the creation of a tab if its name observes a certain rule. etc etc. And naturally, you can duplicate the formulas from one sheet. You will need getFormula() as opposed to getValue.
Note: you can also call
custom Apps Script function directly in your sheet and write your cells using the output of your custom function. But in your case, using the range functions in Apps Script should be more efficient.
I am using Google Sheets and trying to write a custom formatting rule that seems like it should be simple. I am trying to figure out how to conditionally format all the cells in a column INCLUDING AND ABOVE (but not below) the cell that meets my condition.
I've found a lot of things that will format the entire column, but that's not what I'm looking for.
The image below is a basic example that I manually colored in to do what I want.
It's for my budget spreadsheet, where each row is an entry from a particular date. I have an "Agreement" column that is empty except when I enter the date that I reconciled the budget. I want it to color that cell and all the empty cells above it green, signifying at a glance: "everything up to this point is ok/has been checked over". Then as time goes by, and I enter another date several rows below, I want it to extend the colored shading up to there.
I've been searching, but it is hard to articulate this; if I say "until this cell" I get results for "shade cell until text is entered"; any mention of "above" and "below" generally relates to the values in the cells; I've found some things about Indirect but just for a single cell above, not for all cells above the current cell.
Wondering if this is even possible...
Google Sheets example
If you create a conditional formatting rule for column A using a Custom Formula you can use this formula:
=COUNTIF(ROW(),"<="&LARGE(ArrayFormula(IF(ISBLANK(A1:A100),"TRUE",ROW(A1:A100))),1))
The larger the ranges you use, the slower it will be however.
I use Arrayformula() to make my reports dynamic and easier to edit. For example, if I have a Column A with a list o number o blue balls in a set and a Column B with a list red balls in a set, on the cell C1 I can write =ArrayFormula(add(A1:A,B1:B)) and in the Column C will have the total of balls in each set. It would be exactly the same as writing =A1+B1 in cell C1 and dragging the formula down to the last row. Arrayformula() has some benefits, because it will work if some adds or removes rows from the sheet and also it makes the reports way more organized and easier to edit.
Since I´ve discovered arrayformula(), my life has changed, because of the fact that googleSheets expands the formula to other cells. It does not work every time, but the idea of expanding to other cells seems to be possible some way or another, here is a good example of a problem that was not resolved by arrayformula(), but has the same idea.
Keeping that idea in mind, imagine that on Column A there is a list of First Names and on Column B there is a list of Last names. On Column C I want to join this two string using a simples space. The way to do that would be in the cell C1 write =join(" ",A1,B1) and then drag down this formula. This method method however is prone to error since people can add and remove rows, deleting my formula. I want to use a formula that I can write in one single cell and it expands to other cells. I´ve tried =arrayformula(join(" ",A1:A,B1:B)), but it does not work.
Is that a way to do that using =arrayformula() or other native function?
I know I could write a script or custom formula to do that, but this is not my goal here.
I think this formula should work:
=arrayformula(A1:A&" "&B1:B)
In case you want to use a delimiter, you can do the following to have a clean result even though, A or B is not present in some cases:
ARRAYFORMULA(ifna(ifs(isblank(A1:A),,ISBLANK(B1:B),A1:A),A1:A&" - "&B1:B))