Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Today let me show you how to properly use
Header and Footer rows and columns in Mac Numbers.
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So when you create a new table in Numbers usually you get one that looks like this. You could see
that you have these gray cells at the top and on the left. This is a Header Row.
This is a Header Column. The cells there are a little bit different than the ones you see here in
the body of the table. There are several different things that make the cells in the Header Rows and
Columns different. It's important to understand this difference to get the most out of Numbers.
For instance here we have a Table and I named it Class.
I have a Header Row here and a Header Column. Now the contents of the Header Row seem pretty simple
to understand. They are simply the headings for each column. This column contains names
so the heading is Name. This column contains grades so the heading is Graders. This column
contains the number of absences and this is notes. So each one is basically a title for the column.
The Header Column here contains students ID's. Each cell has a value in it. Now when possible
you should make the things in the Header Column unique ID's. So think of every row as a record
in a database. What's in the Header Column is the unique identifier for that row. So a name,
for instance, may do in some cases. But since lots of people have the same names if your table is big
enough you're going to have duplicates in the Header Column. So it's better to use something
like maybe an ID number. The same thing say if you had a table of expenses. You may be tempted
to put the date in the first column in the Header Column. But often you're going to have
multiple expenses on the same day. So that's not a unique identifier. Something like a transaction ID
or a check number would make for a unique identifier. In this case we have student ID's.
So far this just looks like it's an organizational thing. I need to organize this Table
using a Header Row and a Header Column. But they are some ways in which the values of these cells
behave a little differently. For instance, if I go to this table here and I want to simply refer to a
cell in the other table I'll use equals to enter a formula. Then I'll simply refer to this cell.
Now this cell is C5. So you may think when I click here to refer to it I would get C5. But in fact
what I get is Grade S640. Grade is the value in the Header Row and S640 is the student ID from
the Header Column. I can actually type C5 but of course since it's in a different table I'm going
to want to type Class, the name of the table, then two colons and then I could do C5. You can see it
will then convert to show me Grade S640. Or I can simply type the reference using the Header values.
So if I type Grade S640 you could see how it figures out that it's from the table Class
without me having to enter that. Now you could see it simplifies it knowing that
there is no other table with a Grade column and a S640 row. The proper use of Header cells
allows you to get away from using references like C5 and instead use things that make sense.
Let's look at another example here. Here I have a Driving Log. It has dates and for each date the
number of miles that were driven and the amount of gasoline purchased. So when I refer to a cell here
I can click on say the number of miles driven on February 4th and you could see the reference
is Miles and then the date. You could see I could just type that. I'll hit equals here and then do
Miles and then 2/5 and you could see it actually even auto completes. So I can just hit Return and
you see it fills that in. You could see another Return then completes that entry. Now I have a
reference to that cell without having to figure out that this was, in fact, the 6th. Not only
that it works in Functions as well. So if I wanted to get the Sum of all miles driven I could do Sum,
parenthesis, and if I click on the letter of the column here it actually fills in Miles, not B. So
it takes the name from the Header cell. Now I can clearly see that this is the Sum of Miles.
So what else do Header cells do. Well, let's extend this table so it's longer than the
screen. So now you could see here I have a lot of rows. Now you would think that if I
would scroll off the screen it might be hard to remember what the column's names are. In fact
the Header Row will stay there. So as I scroll you could see that the Header Row freezes. The
same thing actually happens with the Header Column here. So let's say I were to add a
few more cells there and you could see I could scroll over and you could see the Header Column
stays steady. Now this is actually a Setting. If I go to Format, Table you could see under Headers
and Footer I can click here and there is Freeze Header Columns. I could also go to Table
and you could see Freeze Header Rows, Freeze Header Columns. You could turn those off. Now you
could see the whole table scrolls up. So you loose those Header Rows. This also works for Printing.
So if I go to Print one of the options I have here is Repeat Table Headers. So now when I look
here I've got Page 1 and I see on Page 2 it actually repeats the Headers there. It
would do the same thing for the Columns if this extended horizontally across pages.
So another important aspect of the Header cell is it doesn't count when you actually try to perform
calculations on it. So it looked perfectly natural before when I did a Sum of this column here and it
gave me a sum of all these numbers. It's not going to include this Header cell here, Miles, because
why would it. Even if it included it that's not a number. But what if I were to use Average instead
and then use this column. The question is, is it going to compute the average
of these cells based on the fact that there are 9 of them
or 10 including this cell here in the Header. The answer is that it won't include the Header cell.
So Header cells are not included when you use a function on an entire column.
Now what about Footer cells. A Footer cell is like a Header cell except it appears at the bottom.
So to add one here we don't want to just go over here and add a Footer cell. Like that. It will
turn the last row into a Footer which isn't what we want. The same thing if you were to go to Table
and then Footer Rows and set it to 1. Instead what we want to do is Add an extra row. So it's
a blank row there. Then we can use either option to Add a Footer Row. So let's add one there.
Notice that the Footer Row does not continue the Header Column. The Header Column there is
empty. This is not meant to be an individual record like the other rows. This is meant to
be some sort of summary of what's found in the table. So you typically would put something like
Sum and then select this column here and you could see it identifies it as Miles
and then you get the sum here. Note that's only counting the cells in the body. It's not counting
the Header cell and it's not counting the Footer cell itself else it would be doubling itself.
Now another thing about Footer Rows is that they always stay at the bottom.
So if I select this cell here and I hit Return to add another row,
notice it adds another row and pushes the Footer Row down.
Now I can have multiple Headers and multiple Footers. When I want to add another Header
what I would do is select a Table and then I could use this menu there or I could go to Table,
Header Rows and go to 2. This will extend to the next row the Header. So if I really want
to add one after already having some data I want to Add Row Above or I can simply use the
Add Header Row above. That will both add a new row and make it a Header Row. Now when you have
multiple Header Rows things get a little complicated. It won't count any of these cells
when you do Sums or Averages or anything like that. But it will take the name from the lowest
Header cell. So if I were to add some information here like another word then refer to a cell
you could see it takes the lowest word there. Header Rows are not a good place to say put a
Sum like that. It works but then the reference takes this value, you could see it says 680,
instead of Miles. So if you want to do multiple calculations on a row it's best to do those in
the Footer. I can click here and add a Footer Row below, like that, and add another Footer
Row and then maybe here is the Average of what's in the body for this column. I can
use the cells here in the first column as labels. So this could be Sum and this could be Average.
So I hope that gives you a little bit of insight in how to best use
Header Rows, Header Columns, and Footer Rows in your next Numbers project.