The present disclosure relates generally to updating formulas within a table of an application, such as a spreadsheet application.
This section is intended to introduce the reader to various aspects of art that may be related to various aspects of the present disclosure, which are described and/or claimed below. This discussion is believed to be helpful in providing the reader with background information to facilitate a better understanding of the various aspects of the present disclosure. Accordingly, it should be understood that these statements are to be read in this light, and not as admissions of prior art.
Spreadsheet applications, as well as other types of applications, may use rows and columns of cells (such as arrays or tables of such cells) in which a user enters or manipulates data for calculation or presentation. Tables of cells used in such applications may range from a limited number of cells in simple or straightforward implementations to much larger arrays of cells in more complex scenarios.
Often an application may allow a user to define a formula within a cell that references other cells within a spreadsheet or table. For example, a formula entered into a cell of a table may reference other cells of that table or of other tables for values that are used, evaluated, or manipulated by the formula in question. For example, one cell may contain a formula for adding or otherwise mathematically manipulating a set of values that are defined in other cells of a spreadsheet.
One consequence of such cell referencing is that a change to the respective table containing the referenced cells may have an inadvertent impact on a referencing formula. For example, changes affecting the layout or arrangement of an array of cells (such as movement or transposition of a range of cells) may result in formulas no longer referencing the cells intended by the user. As a result, changes to a given range of cells, such as due to transposition of the range, may inadvertently render one or more formulas incorrect if those formulas reference the cells in question.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds