Apple Numbers App: A Beginner's Guide

Summary: This post from iBoysoft guides you to exploring the Apple Numbers app in detail, including what it is, how it works, and how to use it on your Mac machine. Do not wait; begin reading to learn about this handy toolkit now!

If you work with numbers and digital information often, you must be familiar with the widely used spreadsheet app Microsoft Excel. This utility has won numerous awards for its excellence in handling numbers, and it has released Microsoft Office for Mac to offer support for macOS devices.

However, Apple has configured its products, including Mac, iPhone, and iPad, with a spreadsheet app, which is called the Apple Numbers app, aiming to deal with numbers and digital data on Apple products locally. Now we are going to learn how to use the Apple Numbers app to create a spreadsheet and organize the digital info as expected.

What is the Apple Numbers app?

Apple Numbers is a spreadsheet app developed by Apple Inc., which is part of the iWork productivity suite, along with Apple Keynote and Apple Pages.

It is available on iOS devices and Mac devices running macOS released after macOS High Sierra(macOS High Sierra included). As the newest application in the iWork Suite, Numbers first appeared on Mac OS X on August 7, 2007. Over the years, Apple has updated it with various features and improvements, making it a more advanced and considerate spreadsheet app.

Compared to its competitor Microsoft Excel, the traditional spreadsheet app, which takes the table as the primary container to hold other media, the Numbers app reduces tables to one of many different media types on a page by using a free-form canvas, whereas other media like charts, graphics, and text are dealt with the same way.

Apart from that, Apple Numbers app also incorporates elements from the groundbreaking Lotus Improv, particularly the usage of formulas based on ranges rather than cells. However, it accomplishes these utilizing regular spreadsheet principles rather than multidimensional databases, as Improv does.

If you find the basic introduction informative, please share it with more people on your social platform!

How to use the Apple Numbers app on Mac?

Now that we have explored the definition and basic history of the Apple Numbers app, it's time to figure out how to run it to create a customizable spreadsheet and organize the digital data:

How to create a spreadsheet in Numbers on Mac:

All spreadsheet starts with a basic template - a model that you use as a starting point, which uses coordinated fonts and colors for a unified look and often includes placeholders that you can replace with the data you want to organize.

Step 1: Go to the Numbers app on your Mac. You can launch the Numbers app by clicking it in the Mac Dock, Launchpad or the Applications folder to open.

Step 2: In the template chooser, browse templates by category, then double-click the preferred one you want. To narrow the choices, click a category along the sidebar on the left.

If you want to create a new spreadsheet from scratch, double-click the Blank template.

Step 3: Do any of the following based on your requirements:

Add your headers and data to a table: select a table cell, then type.
Add other tables, text boxes, shapes, and images: click object buttons in the toolbar.
Arrange elements on the sheet: drag tables and objects to where you want them.

Step 4: Choose File > Save, fill in a name, choose the saving destination, then click Save.

Mac has a stunning feature called AutoSave, which saves all your unfinished work or changes made on numbers, text, presentations, etc. automatically, so you don't need to save the spreadsheet manually or worry about data loss caused by sudden app quitting or device power failure.

You can also turn on iCloud Drive to back up the numbers you're working with, so that you can access or modify them on other devices seamlessly.

Step 5: To close the spreadsheet, click the red X button in the top-left corner of the window.

How to add data to a table in Numbers:

You can add data to a table in Numbers in three ways: type directly into cells, copy and paste content from the source file, or allow Numbers to complete patterns with autofill. Once the data is added, you can edit or clear the cell as you like.

Add data to an empty cell: click the cell and start inputting.
Paste paragraphs into a cell: copy the content you want to paste, control-click the cell, then choose Edit > Paste.
Edit the content: double-click a cell to place the mouse cursor here, then begin typing.
Replace content: click a cell and start typing to overwrite the original content.
Delete all content: click a cell and press the Delete key on your keyboard.

How to create a vivid chart:

You can add column, bar, line, area, pie, doughnut, and radar charts to make a chart more vivid and visual, but the first step you should do is to create a chart:

1⃣️: Create any type of chart by adding a chart to a sheet first, and then select the table cells with the data you want to use.

2⃣️: Select data first, and then create a chart to display the data.

Followingly, you can create a column, bar. Line, area, pie, doughnut, or radar chart to make the content more visual.

Click the Chart button in the toolbar, then click 2D, 3D or Interactive. You can click the left and right arrows to see more styles.
Click a chart or drag it to the sheet.
Click the Add Chart Data button near the selected chart (If you can't see the Add Chart Data button, make sure you have selected the chart).
Select the table cells with the data you want to use.
To change whether rows or columns are plotted as a data series, choose an option from the pop-up menu in the bar at the bottom of the window.
Click Done in the bar at the bottom of the window.

How to collaborate with others in real time:

Like you can create a shared calendar on your Mac workstation, you can also collaborate with other members to create a spreadsheet in Numbers. Note that only users who run macOS 14 or later and Numbers 14.3 or later are allowed to join in this creation work.

As the owner of this spreadsheet, you have the following permissions in this shared spreadsheet creation:

Choose who can access the spreadsheet: Create a link that anyone can use to open the spreadsheet, or limit access to only specific people who must sign in to their Apple Account before they can open it.
Determine the members' permission in editing or viewing only: Permit others to make changes to the spreadsheet or only view it.
Choose who can invite others to join: Whether the people you invite can also invite other people to join the spreadsheet.

See? Apple Numbers app allows you to create kinds of work to make your spreadsheet more vivid and unique, which even makes the boring digital data colorful and easy to comprehend. Therefore, it's unnecessary to pay for the Microsoft Office for Mac any longer since you've got such a handy and free spreadsheet app on your Mac already!