In order to help answer a question on AppleInquiry.com, I put together a quick video on how to select a table in Numbers in order to set its border properties.

It’s short, has no audio, and will be totally irrelevant to most of you. Some of you, however, may find it useful, so I am posting it here:

I just found this great tip for viewing fonts in OS X on Macworld. Instead of using the built-in font viewer application, use Quick Look.

Select a font file in the Finder, then press the Space Bar. Instead of seeing a huge version of the “Ag” icon, you’ll see uppercase and lowercase versions of the alphabet, along with the digits 0 through 9. This makes it simple to get a quick glance at a font.

(Note: the font files referenced above are located in the following locations: your user’s fonts are in your Library/Fonts folder; the all-user fonts are in the top-level Library/Fonts folder, and the system fonts are in /System/Library/Fonts)

Great tip.

We have two big announcements: First, after two years, we are closing down the Numbers Templates Forums. Second, we are starting a new site called AppleInquiry.com, which will serve as the new home for the content generated on the forum.

We have many reasons for doing this. Chiefly, we believe that the software behind AppleInquiry.com (the same that runs the sites StackOverflow.com and SuperUser.com) is vastly superior for quickly finding answers to questions. Second, users earn reputation points as they ask and answer questions, which allows for additional site privileges as you earn points (e.g., the ability to comment on questions, or edit tags).

Also, we wanted to expand the scope of the discussion beyond Numbers into all things Apple. For example, if you are running Numbers and have questions, you probably have questions about the rest of the iWork suite, or iLife, or OS X. See the point?

AppleInquiry.com uses openid for logins, so your personal data will also be more-secure (we will be deleting our forum user database after the site transition is complete).

How does this differ from the discussion boards at Apple? It differs precisely because the Apple boards are forums. This means that the replies to any question are set out chronologically with no weight given to a particular response. With AppleInquiry.com users can vote up answers that they feel best answer the question. This allows the “wisdom of crowds” effect to kick in, resulting in the most-relevant answers rising to the top.

All content on AppleInquiry.com is licensed under the cc-wiki with attribution required license. This means anybody can use the content for any purpose as long as they link back to the source, and license their adaptations under a similar license. This also means the content can never be locked behind a “pay wall”.

Another awesome feature is the ability to subscribe to rss feeds for individual tags. So, if you wanted to follow all questions and answers related to Numbers, you could subscribe to this Numbers Tag RSS feed in your favorite reader. Also, you can choose to be emailed when someone answers one of your questions. Great, great, stuff.

What is the goal?

The ultimate goal of AppleInquiry.com is to become the first place users go to answer their Apple related questions; a Wikipedia for Apple questions if you will. In order to achieve this goal, we need your help. A site like this can only catch on with an active community. We hope that users will both find, and contribute useful content.

It is perfectly acceptable to use the site like a notebook. By that, we mean that you can answer your own questions if you feel that the knowledge you are posting would be something you may wish to refer back to quickly, and is something that you feel other users may find useful. Joel Spolsky describes it thusly, “You can find out about bread on the internet, but there should be an entry for bread in Wikipedia. That’s the purpose of an encyclopedia.”

One last caveat: The software that runs the software is currently in beta, so there could be some quirky issues at the start. Rest assured however, that these issues will subside. The software is being developed by Fog Creek Software, which has a reputation for hiring great developers and creating quality products.

As we posted yesterday, Numbers ’09 uses a different file format than Numbers ’08

You can save Numbers ’09 documents in a format compatible with Numbers ’08, the option is just a little hidden.

Here’s how to make your Numbers documents compatible with the older version: First, choose File > Save as… Then, click the checkbox at the bottom labeled “Save copy as:” (the default is Excel Document). Finally, click the drop down menu (as shown below) and choose iWork ’08.

The new file will have the same extension (.numbers) as the ’09 file, but it will be saved as a “package” file, rather than a “flat” file.

For more explanation of the new file format, see yesterday’s post: File Compatibility Between Numbers ‘08 and Numbers ‘09.

Joining columns or cells in a spreadsheet is something that experienced users do all the time, but may be challenging for a new user.

Have no fear, joining cells or columns is simple to do using the CONCATENATE function in Numbers.

There are two ways to use the CONCATENATE function:

First you can type =CONCATENATE(A1,A2,…)

Where A1, A2, … are the cells you wish to join.

The second method – the one I prefer – is to use the ampersand (&) as a shortcut. In this case, you would use a formula such as =A1&A2 to join the contents of cell A1 and A2 into one cell.

Experienced users will immediately notice a problem with that example: there will be no space between the joined cells. This may, in fact, be exactly what you are looking for. But, if you are trying to join names, you would want a space between the joined cells.

No problem. Simply concatenate a space between the cells by using a formula like: =A1&” “&B1. This will give you the necessary space between the joined elements. You can see this exact technique in the screenshot above.

FYI:Â The CONCATENATE function uses the same format on Excel as Numbers.

For more information: Numbers Function Reference: CONCATENATE

If you have Microsoft Office installed on your Mac, it will be the default application for opening files with the .xls and .xlsx extensions. But what if you want these files opened by Numbers by default?

Changing the default application for a file type in Mac OSX is easy. Simply right (or control) click on the file and select “Get Info”. In the “Open with:” pane, select Numbers. Next click the “Change All” button and all Excel files will now open by default in Numbers.

An alternative to changing the default application – if you only wish to open an Excel file in Numbers from time to time – would be to right (or control) click on the file and choose the “Open With” option, then select Numbers.

(via: Jerrold Green1)

I just found this great Numbers tip on Fury&Frost.com:

You can use the INDEX() Function to transpose data to another table.

Read the post for a full explanation, but use the following function to get the results shown in the screen shot above:

=INDEX(Prefs::$A$1:$E$15,COLUMN(),ROW())

Good one!

One of the unique features of Numbers is the ability to place an image in a cell, or behind a group of cells. In the case of the latter, it can be a little confusing to figure out how to accomplish this trick.

I put together a short screen cast demonstrating how to place an image behind a table in Numbers. I also demonstrate the different options available to display your image: Scale to Fit, Scale to Fill, Stretch, Original Size, and Tile.

You can watch the video below:

One of the most frequently asked questions on the Apple Numbers Discussion forums is how to rotate text (for instance, make the text vertical). This is a common function in Excel, but unfortunately, it is not available in Numbers ’08.

However, while you cannot rotate text in-cell, you can use a hack that will give you the same visual experience when the document is printed.

As a first on Numbers Templates, I recorded a short video demonstrating how to rotate a text box. It was a fairly easy process to create, so if the reaction is positive, I will record and share more tutorials.

Good Tip: Shift-dragging a window in Spaces will consolidate all of that app’s windows in the target space.

Via Daring Fireball via Nat Irons