My normal methodology is to do anything Word-related in Mac Pages...importing Word documents into it and then Exporting them when finished...or vice-versa if I have to create a document that will ultimately have to exist in Word. Thus, my near-total ignorance of how to do all but the simplest tasks natively in Word for Mac.

I'm throwing myself on the mercy of Word savants and begging for help — because this methodology isn't working for me in this instance.

I created a Pages document that has a simple Table in it with these columns:

A - Item
B - Quantity
C - Unit Price
D - Total

and a Grand Total cell at the bottom of the far right column. There are only two functions involved:

1) In the D column: =B2*C2

2) In the Grand Total cell: SUM (D2: D6)

This table works flawlessly in Pages. When I input new figures in the B and C columns, the D column reflects the new calculations, and the Grand Total cell is updated accordingly.


However, when I Export the Pages document to Word (2011), nothing works at all. The cell formulae apparently don't copy over. Furthermore, I can't for the life of me figure out how to duplicate this functionality in Word.

I see that there is a Function... selection under the Table menu, and it gives me ready-made PRODUCT and SUM functions. But I see no way to specify the cells involved, as they aren't identified in my table, and my logical guess at cell addresses that would seem to make sense don't work. Nor can you simply click on cells to insert them in the formula.

What am I missing here? If it's something blindingly obvious, I apologize in advance, but I'm extremely frustrated right now that I can't get something that should be so simple to work.

Any help anyone can offer would be greatly appreciated!


EDIT: OK, so I later discovered that by choosing each individual cell, one by one, in the table and going to the Function... submenu, entering the PRODUCT(LEFT) formula and specifying the currency formatting, I got the calculations to work. (Simply copying the contents of a cell with the formula and pasting them to adjacent cells didn't work.)

BUT...when I change the number in the Quantity and Unit Price cells... nothing happens. The cell with the calculation in it remains the same.

So then I discovered that by right-clicking on each individual D (Total) cell and choosing Update Field, I can get the correct calculation.

HUH??? You really have to do this each and every time you input a new figure? In the name of all that's holy, WHY????

Is this really my only option here? And do I have to explain all of this to the future users of this document? (It won't go over well, I'm sure.)

I just don't get it. Surely there's an easier way?

(And by the way... how do I format my Unit Price column for currency? I couldn't find any way to do this other than in the Function section... but I can't do it without also specifying a formula, which I don't want in these cells. Now what???)

Any help would be greatly appreciated.