HOW DO I GET NUMBERS TO DO WHAT I WANT?

Question

HELP PLEASE:
I  FIND NUMBERS  CONFUSING.  THE OLD WORKS SPREADSHEETS WERE SO MUCH EASIER/SIMPLER.
I CAN’T SEEM TO GET THE FORMULAS & FUNCTIONS ENTERED CORRECTLY.
I DON’T KNOW WHAT THEY MEAN “PRESERVE ROW” OR “PRESERVE COLUMN”.. SO DON’T KNOW IF I NEED TO CHECK
ONE OF THEM OR NOT…AMONG OTHER THINGS.
I’M TRYING TO MAKE A SPREADSHEET FOR TWO INVESTMENT ACCTS.
ONE HAS A LARGE NUMBER OF STOCKS IN IT.
THE SECOND HAS ONLY A FEW STOCKS BUT THEY ARE THE SAME STOCKS WHICH ARE IN THE FIRST ACCT. AS WELL.
THAT MEANS MOST OF THE CELLS IN COLUMNS F & G (BELOW) WILL BE EMPTY.
FOR THE PURPOSE OF MY EXAMPLE:
“A ACCT“  WILL SHOW ONLY 4 STOCKS  & “B ACCT” WILL HAVE ONLY 2 STOCKS. I THINK THAT’S ENOUGH FOR YOU
TO SEE WHAT I’M ATTEMPTING TO DO.
LETS SAY THE COLUMN HEADINGS ARE:
  A                 B                          C                D                  E                             F                 G                           H
SYM       DESCRIPTION       A ACCT#SH     CLOSE    A ACCT TTL VALUE     B ACCT#SH   B ACCT TTL VALUE   ACCTS A&B TTL
I WANT TO MULTIPLY ACROSS EACH ROW      THE # SH    TIMES    THE CLOSE  — TWICE
COL C  TIMES D SHOULD EQUAL E
COL F  TIMES D SHOULD EQUAL  G
THEN I’D LIKE TO ADD E + G AND HAVE THEIR TOTALS ENTERED IN COL H IN EACH ROW.
ONCE ALL THAT’S DONE,  I’D LIKE COL. E TOTALED, COLUMN G TOTALED AND COL H TOTALED.
FOR EXAMPLE:
     A             B                         C                 D                  E                          F                        G                         H
1. SYM    DESCRIPTION       A ACCT#SH     CLOSE    A ACCT TTL VALUE     B ACCT#SH   B ACCT TTL VALUE    ACCTS A&B TTL
2. XYZ     XYZ STOCK               200             25.00           $5,000.00              150                  $3,750.00           $8,750.00
3. STU     STU STOCK               100             10.00           $1,000.00            
4. PQR     PQR STOCK               500             20.00         $10,000.00             100                   $2,000.00         $12,000.00
5. MNO    MNO STOCK              100             12.75           $1,275.00            
                                                                                =SUM (E2:E5)                               =SUM (G2:G5)      =SUM (H2:H5)              
I THINK I KNOW HOW TO WRITE THE FORMULAS TO TOTAL THE COLUMNS. I CHOOSE  “EDIT FORMULA” UNDER  “FUNCTION” AT
THE TOP OF THE SPREADSHEET AND WRITE AS I’VE SHOWN ABOVE IN AN EMPTY CELL AT THE BOTTOM OF EACH COLUMN.
IS THIS  CORRECT?
WHAT I HAVEN’T FIGURED OUT IS HOW TO GET THE MULTIPLICATION DONE ACROSS THE ROWS OR THE ADDITION FOR COL. H
I THINK I KNOW WHAT THE FORMULAS SHOULD BE  BUT DON’T KNOW HOW TO GET THEM ENTERED OR WHERE….
I’M DOING SOMETHING WRONG BECAUSE  I GET ONLY ONE  NUMBER AT THE BOTTOM OF COLUMN E  INSTEAD OF MULTIPLYING
ACROSS,  THEN TOTALING THE COLUMNS
I THINK THOSE FORMULAS SHOULD BE:
COL E  SHOULD BE:   =PRODUCT(C,D)         AND   COLUMN G  SHOULD BE: =PRODUCT(D,F )        AND COL H SHOULD BE: =SUM(E,G)
CORRECT?  IF NOT PLEASE ADVISE WHAT THEY SHOULD BE.
IF MY FORMULAS ARE CORRECT, HOW DO I GET NUMBERS TO DO IT?  PLEASE PRETEND YOU’RE SPEAKING TO A 5 YR OLD…..
I’D SAY 1O YR OLD BUT THEY MAY BE MORE FAMILIAR WITH THE VOCABULARY AND HOW TO DO THIS THAN I AM.
THANK YOU.

Answer 1

It's incredibly hard to read a post when it's in ALL CAPS.
But the answer to your question is copy and paste. When you have a cell that contains a formula, and you copy and paste it into another cell, firstly, the formula gets pasted, not the value, and second, the formula uses relative cell values. What that means is, if your formula in E2 is C2 * D2, and you copy and paste that cell value into E3, it will by default become C3 * D3. (You CAN change a formula to use absolute cell values if it suits your spreadsheet - when you edit the formula, the drop down for each cell number includes a value like $C2 which will not change when you paste it into a lower row.)
by the way, it's usually faster just to use the equals sign when you enter a formula in a cell. eg, click into E2, press equals to start the formula, click into C2 to make that the first cell in the formula, type "*", then click into D2 and click the green tick to confirm the formula.
Matt