I'm assuming that (in terms of your example) the invoice amounts that you're adding up would form a contiguous range of numbers, and that this range would be bounded by whitespace. That is, you might have some other range that used column C -- say "expenses" -- but it would be lower down, say starting at C15, and there would be at least one blank cell between the two. Is that correct? If it weren't for that lower range, you could just take the sum of the whole column and you'd be good. But it's too inconvenient (and not the "spreadsheet way") to force everything into separate columns.

If the above is correct, how would you feel about being able to define a range with a notation like this: "C2:C✱", meaning "the range of cells that starts at C2 and goes down until it hits whitespace"? Then as you add numbers to C11, C12, etc., the range would automatically expand to include them. But you'd still have to be careful to ensure there was a "moat" of whitespace around your invoice range. If you filled in the last non-whitespace cell before your other table, you'd now have connected the two tables in such a way that "C2:C✱" would leap down to the end of the second table. In other words you'd be lumping "invoices" together with "expenses" which is probably incorrect.

For your data C2:C10 - Do a field: sum(C2:C11) Then when you want to add more data - right-click on the row (11) and "insert" That will update your sum calculation.

Also - you can do named fields - so that if you select the fields C2:C11 - then you can name them as "invoices" (in excel 2003 it's in the top left corner - there's a selection box you can type in. Just select and type a name in there). The lets you do the command sum(invoices)

Also - don't forget you can do something like sum(C:C) which will just give you everything in C column..

I.e. leave a blank row at the bottom of my table, and have the sum include that blank row? I actually know about that trick (thanks :)... what I want is a spreadsheet that does what I want without my tricking it.

With the list builder you are always given an extra row at the bottom to continue adding to the list. Any formulas below the list builder will be pushed down and expanded.

The list builder also turns on Auto Filters for the list as well.

You can do what you're wanting with dynamic named ranges.

From reading some of your other responses it seems like you don't want to sum the entire row, maybe because you have the sum listed at the bottom of the dataset or something. With a dynamic named range you can add rows to the bottom of the range, and you also get a nice name to reference it by. It works by using offset and count/counta to deliver a range based on how many occupied cells there are (depending on if you use count or counta).

There are a few ways of doing it listed here: http://www.ozgrid.com/Excel/DynamicRanges.htm

In my experience you can do an incredible amount of things in Excel before you even break into doing stuff in VBA. You just have to look at any of the numerous resources out there that have tricky formulas available.

When I said, "I'm frustrated every single time I use a spreadsheet", it's not that I can't do whatever it is that I need to get done, I just get annoyed when products are made hard to use when they don't have to be. It's not so much a personal frustration as that I've spent a lot of time at non-profits helping non-computer people use computers, and it's a huge waste of their time and of my time to have to train them how to manipulate the software to get what they want instead of the software just doing it.

C2:C11 was a tremendous advance in 1979 when personal computers had 48K of memory and 40x25 character screens, but goodness gracious, it's thirty years later!

Making something easier to use is a tremendous amount of hard work, but it isn't conceptually all that hard to understand: you look at what people are doing, and you write software to implement that, instead of making them manipulate the software to do the implementation themselves.

I haven't looked at it myself so I don't know if Apple got it right or not, but from Timothee's comment that "Numbers actually manages tables as independent objects of a page", it sounds like they're at least trying.

On the other hand, having defined tables with in a workbook is great idea, but it makes the whole application a wee bit more complicated. I'd like to see it in something of a hybrid between Access and Excel, where you can mix structured and tabular data.

The formula should describe the calculation I want performed and it should continue to work even when I enter new data. For example, if I have a "defined table" as you say, I should be able to ask it for a sum of a column in the table, and have it continue to work even if I add new data to the table, with hacks or trickery or invoking obscure commands.

Of course, it's not perfect if you look at the proprietary format, at the smaller number of formulas than Excel, and so on. But it's a nice piece of software as far as I'm concerned.

It's a moot point since you don't have a Mac but from what you describe, Numbers does what you're missing.

I saw in one of your later comments that you were also talking about multiple tables on the same page. Numbers actually manages tables as independent objects of a page. So, in a table you can ask for the sum of a whole column without getting the numbers from another unrelated table on the same page. That's something that always bothered me in Excel.

if you use insert row - then formulas respond and will go from C2:C10 to C2:C11 (tested in excel2003 at least)