Lotus 1-2-3

COMBINING DATA FROM SEPARATE 1-2-3 FILES INTO A THIRD 95LX 100LX

Lotus 1-2-3's File Combine feature lets you automatically add data from one or more separate spreadsheets into the one you're working on -- without having to manually re-enter the data.

Let's say your a sales manager and have three spreadsheets: EAST.WK1 has sales figures for the East Coast, WEST.WK1 has the West Coast figures, and USA.WK1 will have the total national figures.

To walk through this tip, you'll need to create the three .WK1 files in the same format. Each is a two column spreadsheet with the names of three products in cells A5 to A7 and the corresponding sales figures in cells B5 to B7. Use the following data for the spreadsheets:

EAST.WK1: WIDGETS 3,456

THINGS 1,234

NICKS 987

WEST.WK1: WIDGETS 5,890

THINGS 2,455

NICKS 1,232

USA.WK1: Enter WIDGETS, THINGS, and NICKS in A5-A7. Leave B5-B7 blank for now.)

Go to Cell B5 in USA.WK1 and add in the sales figures from EAST.WK1 as follows.

  1. 1. Type (MENU) File Combine Add Named/ Specified-Range.

  2. 2. Type in B5..B7 (the range in EAST.WK1 containing the sales figures) and press (ENTER).

  3. 3. Then highlight or type in east.wk1 (the name of the file to combine) and press (ENTER).

Add the sales figures from WEST.WK1 into USA .WK1 following the procedure above. When it comes time to enter the name of the file to combine, enter west.wk1 instead of east.wk1.

If you followed the steps correctly, the sales figure in USA.WK1 should be the sum of the sales figures in EAST.WK1 and WEST.WK1.

Rich Hall

Editor, The HP Palmtop Paper