Pdmjr - Switching Tables

Question

pdmjr
I'm glad you found a solution to your post "Switching Tables with a pop-up menu??". But as someone who spent some time thinking about your problem and waiting for some clarification as requested by 5|=vv, I feel kind of empty by not being told the solution. Two people took the time to respond to your query and I am sure others spent time working the problem but did not respond because they felt they had nothing to offer for their efforts. Whether questioners responders, or just interested readers, the members of this forum hope to learn more about Numbers and how to handle different and unusual situations.
Please give us the courtesy of responding with the solution to your unique problem.
pw

Answer 1

OK - This may get a little long but here it goes! The problem was I have horn strobes for fire alarm panels that have different sizes and different current values. They have generic names such as 15cd wall 30cd ceiling but each manufacturer has a different value for the same size such as one manufacturer may have their 15cd at .078 amps and another at .085 amps. I had originally made a pop up menu with a list of all the different sizes and made a table with a vlookup to change to the different sizes. The problem with this solution was going with the generic names for each manufacturer caused me to sometimes get lost in the pop up as with just 3 brands in the pop up the list was almost 100 items! I tried adding just the first letter of the brand next to the beginning of the generic term but then any one else looking at the sheet would get kind of confused wondering what that letter was at the beginning of the generic term. Also scrolling that many was a chore. I began to think how can I split this into 3 tables, or as many as needed by brands and have a pop up menu change out the table. In other words if I wanted to use brand A I would select in the pop up menu brand A in cell A3 and all of the generic names with their associated current values would come up in D7. I also have a pop up menu in D6 that lets me select the right generic size that I need. So the first thing that I do is select the brand in A3 then move to D6 and select the the generic size 15cd w 30cd c and so forth and in D7 I will get the correct current value for the brand I have selected. This is in turn duplicated for 15 more rows down the page as most of the time there are 8 to 12 items on a circuit. This is what I meant by switching out the table with a pop up menu. The formula is =IF(A3="Wheelock",(VLOOKUP($B8,Wheelock :: $A$2:$B$33,2,FALSE)),(IF(A3="System Sensor",(VLOOKUP($B8,System Sensor :: $A$2:$B$33,2,FALSE)),(IF(A3="Gentex",(VLOOKUP($B8,Gentex :: $A$2:$B$33,2,FALSE))))))) I hope I did not bore you and I hope I explained it well enough.
Thanks
Peter