Spreadsheet tips with Lotta Rosenkallums . . .

Positioning column totals

©2005, Information Disciplines, Inc., Chicago

When we first learned, as children, to add a column of numbers, we were taught to write the total at the bottom. That convention has been preserved by accountants in financial statements and by computer application designers in output reports.

That convention, however, may not be appropriate for your computerized spreadsheet models, especially when the number of rows is variable or unpredictable. When you put the totals at the top of each column:

• The user gets to see them right away, without having to scroll the sheet.
• The user can add or delete rows without affecting the location or the formula of the total cells.
• You can define user-friendly printed reports, both summary and detailed, more simply.

The formula, of course, is coded in exactly the same way using the sum() built-in function.

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Last modified January 4, 2005