Fill down in numbers

[tony873004]

Hi. I imported data into numbers. The first column contains time and the second contains distance in meters. I inserted a new column in between them. I would like it to contain distance in centimeters. So I type =c2*100. Now I want to fill down so every row has this formula. I found I can drag the gold box to the bottom of the screen. But the bottom of the screen is a long way away. There is lots of data and I don't want it to take an hour. Is there a way I can auto fill the entire column? In Excel you just highlight the cell you want to fill down with and double click the little black box on the cells bottom right corner.

Thanks!

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[dougrogers]

The last cell you drag to remembers the formula. Just drag and fill again from there. Won't that work?

[tony873004]

Yes, dragging works. But I can only drag to the last cell visible on the screen. My spreadsheet has over 1000 rows of data. So drag, scroll, highlight, drag, scroll, repeat 50 times... takes forever. Isn't there a simple way to make it go the last row for you automatically, like they have in Excel? It would be a HUGE time-saver.

[twerppoet]

Yes, dragging works. But I can only drag to the last cell visible on the screen. My spreadsheet has over 1000 rows of data. So drag, scroll, highlight, drag, scroll, repeat 50 times... takes forever. Isn't there a simple way to make it go the last row for you automatically, like they have in Excel? It would be a HUGE time-saver.

If you approach the edge of the screen slowly, at one point it will start scrolling down and continue the Fill. Stop your finger there and wait for it to get to the bottom of the table. The scrolling is easy to miss. Just keep an eye on movement, whether it looks like scrolling kind movement or not.

Might take a couple tries, but even if it doesn't work every time, I'm sure you can reduce the number of time you need to go through the motions.

[tony873004]

If you approach the edge of the screen slowly, at one point it will start scrolling down and continue the Fill. Stop your finger there and wait for it to get to the bottom of the table. The scrolling is easy to miss. Just keep an eye on movement, whether it looks like scrolling kind movement or not.

Might take a couple tries, but even if it doesn't work every time, I'm sure you can reduce the number of time you need to go through the motions.

Thanks for the reply!
I discovered that method. The problem is that it takes too long.
I teach high school Physics, and we take data from sensors, such a force sensors. These sensors can feed you thousands of rounds of data. Keeping your finger on the bottom of the screen while it scrolls at a maximum rate of about 4 rows per second can still take upwards of 20-30 minutes. I can't have half the lab period dedicated to holding your finger at the bottom of the iPad screen. Excel simply lets you double-click the bottom right corner of the highlighted box, and it fills down to the bottom for you, instantly. I was hoping Numbers had a similar feature, since my school heavily encourages using the iPad, which each student is required to own. But if Numbers doesn't have this basic feature, I'm going to have to find a plan B Thanks again for your reply!

[dougrogers]

Are you saying you're limited, bound, to inputting thousands of rows of data manually?

[twerppoet]

Thanks for the reply!
I discovered that method. The problem is that it takes too long.
I teach high school Physics, and we take data from sensors, such a force sensors. These sensors can feed you thousands of rounds of data. Keeping your finger on the bottom of the screen while it scrolls at a maximum rate of about 4 rows per second can still take upwards of 20-30 minutes. I can't have half the lab period dedicated to holding your finger at the bottom of the iPad screen. Excel simply lets you double-click the bottom right corner of the highlighted box, and it fills down to the bottom for you, instantly. I was hoping Numbers had a similar feature, since my school heavily encourages using the iPad, which each student is required to own. But if Numbers doesn't have this basic feature, I'm going to have to find a plan B Thanks again for your reply!

That's too bad. Numbers is a pretty good personal and even small business spreadsheet, but it's not the number cruncher to handle super sized tables; especially the kind that science experiments are likely produce. The hardware can even be a bit slow for this. My iPad 3 can get bogged down scrolling super sized tables. I imagine the iPad 4th gen is better.

[twerppoet]

Are you saying you're limited, bound, to inputting thousands of rows of data manually?

It's not Excel. It's not even the OS X version. If you need to enter and track that kind of information you need to get a tool designed to do the job. Numbers on the iPad is pretty good as a personal or even small business spreadsheet. It was never meant to take the place of corporate or science apps.

There are iPad solutions for this kind of thing out there, but they generally involve a central database and internet connectivity. And more money, of course. FileMaker Pro, for instance.

[dougrogers]

You're suggesting what I was approaching. Numbers, obviously, isn't the proper tool for the job. I thought there might be some other software solution, app, or input device. Maybe a laptop running Numbers? Or Excel? Obviously some other database, not a spreadsheet. Some solution capable of taking measurement data directly from some input device. Money of course. That's the answer.

[twerppoet]

The only way I can think of to avoid adding data to Numbers manually, is to import it. You can import .csv files. Actually, this works well for science applications. Most science instruments capture data as a text file with some kind of delimiter; coma being the most common (pun sort of intended).

So it's not impossible to enter large amounts of data into Numbers, as long as you are willing to import it as a new spreadsheet, or copy&paste if from a comma delimited text file. The table will expand to hold the data. That still does not address the iPad being underpowered for huge data sets, but it's hard to tell how much impact a simple calculation will have without trying it.

Which gives me an idea!

Off to test, and if it works, post to the OP.