Adding up columns

Question

When adding columns I click the SUM formula which adds up the whole column.
Can anyone tell me how to add up only certain rows in the same column?
I can do this in Excel by inserting a blank row and then SUM. This adds up the numbers
between the blank rows.
This method does not work in Numbers, is there a way??

Answer 1

I don't quite know what your talking about in Excel, Do you mean that your break your list halfway (arbitrary location) by inseting a row, and then do a sum below? that works in excel because of the way it determines the area to automatically use for lists. when it hits a blank row, it thinks you are the top/bottom/left/right of your 'table' or 'list'. And adds up the amount up to the 'top' of your 'list'.
In numbers each table is in reality its own table, not a bunch of tables sharing one sheet. so that logic doesn't carry over. If you really need some way of adding up certain numbers, you can use a sumif command, giving it the values to use for both comparison and the range ti sum if the comparison range evaluates to true.
In theory you could have one table with the row numbers to use for your sum, then the actual sum equation builds its range definition from those cells using the ADDRESS function (page 203 in the Numbers Manual Available Here). this will give you a really neat way of adding up any range you want within a list, without having to modify the equation, add or delete extra rows etc...
Hope this helps some,
Jason