Hello, welcome to Chris's quick tips for Google Sheets.
The Google Sheet App allows you to access a Google sheet on your mobile phone or tablet.
The Sheet App is really useful for entering data into a sheet especially
if that data is collected remotely and you only have your phone or tablet available.
The app is also useful for making a few edits to an existing sheet. You can add formulas,
change formatting and you can do that wherever you happen to be. But personally,
I would not recommend, especially on a mobile phone, starting a new sheet project of any
complexity using the app. I would start a new sheet on a PC, a laptop or a desktop that's got
a full sized screen and a full size keyboard. Click on the App and Google sheets shows you a
list of recently modified files. The default view has a small graphical preview of the sheet. Click
on the List View icon to change the view to a list of the files without any graphical preview.
Click on the Preview icon to switch back to the list with a graphical preview.
If you want to do some file management, for example, to rename the file, make a copy of
a file, control access to the file - all of these activities and more can be done
by either tapping and holding the preview icon or file name or alternatively clicking on the
three dots next to the file name in either the preview list or text list view. If you want to
open a specific sheet just tap on the preview icon. To close the sheet click the back arrow
and you will return to the list of sheets. If you need access to a sheet regularly on
your phone or tablet Google Sheet gives you the option to add a shortcut to your phone's home
screen. You can then click on the shortcut to go directly to the sheet. File management can
also be done using the Google Drive app - if you've got this app installed on your device.
On the mobile phone which is in portrait mode it is not possible to see the full table of fruits in
green, rotate the screen so the mobile phone is in landscape and the app will also change
the display to landscape mode which makes it possible to see the entire table of fruits.
Suppose that I want to update the number of pears to 3 using the App. The sheet is
currently in View mode and there is no keyboard on the screen. To change the Edit Mode tap on
the cell that you want to edit. At the top of the screen the file name has been replaced by a
green tick and at the bottom of the screen the tabs which give access to other sheets within
this Google sheet file have been replaced by the formula bar. I call this Sheet Edit Mode
since it allows you to edit only this specific sheet within the file. However, there still
isn't a keyboard so you still can't actually enter any data. If you tap in the formula bar,
the keyboard appears and you can now edit the contents of the cell. I call this Cell Edit Mode.
The keyboard will be either a QWERTY keyboard or a numeric keypad depending on the contents of the
cell. QWERTY for a text cell and numeric keypad for a cell containing a number.
If you want to switch between keyboard and keypad use the "AAA" or "123" buttons.
Note that both the keyboard and the keypad have a row of useful characters at the top
so that you do not need to switch between keypad and keyboard to find these characters.
On my tablet the keyboard has a dark background but sheet has a light background so it is possible
to miss these extra characters because they are not in the same colour as the keyboard.
When you have entered the new value of 3 you can tap the Enter button which will accept the edit
and move the cell selection to the cell below. You remain in Cell Edit Mode for the next cell
down in the sheet which allows you to rapidly update all the cell's in a column
of data. Tap the green tick to the right of the formula bar to exit Cell Edit Mode.
For anybody like me who has fat fingers and is always hitting the wrong thing on a small
mobile phone screen, the most useful button on the whole screen is the Undo button. I've just
tapped the Undo button to undo the change to 3 pears. If you ever tap anything by
mistake or delete something that you should not have deleted just hit the Undo button
and it should be able to recover your mistake. If I retype 3. The other alternative to hitting
the enter button on the numeric keypad is to tap the green tick to the right of the formula
bar and this will exit cell edit mode. The selected cell will stay in the same cell. It
does not move down like it did when you hit the Enter button. To exit Sheet Edit Mode.
Tap the green tick at the top of the screen. The tabs for the other sheets within this
Google sheet file reappear and the X to exit this sheet is shown at the top of the screen.
It is also possible to work with ranges in Google sheet app. Select a cell then tap and
drag the circle at the bottom right of the blue box to the bottom right of the range that you
want to select. You can also drag the circle at the top left of the blue box to the top left of
the range that you want to select. You can now tap the range to get the menu of options, for example,
I can clear all the cells in the range. Let's restore the table by tapping the Undo button.
Google Sheet makes it easy to add functions to your sheet by listing at the bottom of the screen
some of the most common functions that you might want to apply to this range or the equals if you
want to enter a function that isn't listed. Let's tap AVG or average. The average for
the range has been calculated and added to the cell under the last cell of the range.
Let's tap Undo and try another function. Type equals in the formula bar using the
equals in the bar above the keyboard. If you know the function name then start to type the function
name and the row above the function bar shows the functions that match the letters that you
have typed so far. Click on the function and then either type of value or click on
a cell or drag to select a range whichever is appropriate for the function that you are using.
When you have entered all the parameters required for the function tap the tick. I
have just tapped Undo to show another way of finding the required function.
If you do not know the function name click on the function button. Note that you do not need
to type equals first you will be shown a list of recently used functions and below that all
the functions split into different categories. You can click on a category to see a list of all
the functions within the category. If the brief description of the function does not provide
enough information click on the "i" button and you will be given detailed information about the
function and a link to learn even more about the function which opens a Google help page about the
function in your browser. Swipe Back to return to the sheet from your browser then back arrow
to return to the list of functions. Click on the required function which puts the function
in the formula bar then select the range for the function and finally tap the green tick.