Linking cells between projects in Numbers

Question

Linking cells between projects in Numbers

It has been 11 years since someone asked whether it is possible to link cells in different projects using a formula. This is very much needed in cases in which individual spreadsheets are very large and in which the number of cells to be linked is not trivial. Writing an Apple script is beyond even many experienced spreadsheet users, or at least I do not know where to find a tutorial to teach me how to do it. Has there been any progress in the past decade?

Mac Studio, macOS 15.1

Posted on Jan 25, 2025 9:06 PM

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Answer 1

SGIII

Level 8

37,550 points

Jan 26, 2025 2:27 AM in response to Expat_in_Japan

None of us are privy to development decisions by Apple.

Speaking as a user, I see more disadvantages than advantages to referencing a different document via formula. I tried that in Excel years ago and found to my dismay that "links" broke all too easily when I moved documents in the file system.

That was before it became common to store documents in the cloud, which compounds the problem.

If you have "very large" documents and you need them to reference each other, then quite likely you are using the wrong tool for your situation.

Meanwhile, you can handle medium-sized projects in Numbers quite well if you take advantage of the ability to have more than one table on each sheet, with multiple sheets in the document.

SG

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Answer 2

Jan 26, 2025 3:44 PM in response to SGIII

Dear SG,

Thank you for your reply. Essentially, I am already doing as you suggested. It is just that the primary spreadsheet is very wide and long and the derived sheet is not small, but it seems there is no alternative.

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Answer 3

SGIII

Level 8

37,550 points

Jan 29, 2025 8:49 AM in response to Expat_in_Japan

In Numbers a "spreadsheet" means a document. A "sheet" has a "tab" and a blank canvas. At "table" and rows and columns of cells.

I think you are talking about tables here, but that's not clear. If you are talking about tables, then you should be able to organize your work so that you don't have very "wide" tables, which can hard to work with.

SG

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Answer 4

Jan 29, 2025 1:36 PM in response to SGIII

Dear SG,

I apologize for my erroneous application of terminology. I think you understood correctly. I want to link data between documents. I cannot reduce the size of the tables, as they are intended to hold extracted data from cemeteries, where rows are people and columns are vital data, in English and Japanese. I have documents for individual cemeteries, which may hold half a dozen to 1,000 people. I have a master document that holds all extracted data, and another master document that holds cemetery location and size data, both estimated and actual (only after digitization). It is a large project. Agreement between an individual cemetery document and the two master documents prevents errors and omissions. It is workable, but cumbersome, given the sheer volume of data.

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