People seem to learn better when working on a project. Recently I had some people who wanted to know how to set up a Miles per gallon sheet in Numbers. For those of you who are in the metric standard, the formulas are the same just substitute liters for gallons and kilometers for miles. We’ll get going after the break.
What’s really interesting about this project is that this is not just for Numbers. Just about every spreadsheet uses the same basic formulas, so you can follow along even if you are not using Numbers.
We need the following columns in this order
- Date
- Odometer start
- Odometer End
- Total miles
- Gallons
- Miles per Gallon
These are the basic minimum columns that wee need just to do this one task. You are free to add whatever columns you want. The sheet should look something like this:
The total miles column needs a formula, so start by typing this into cell d2, “=c2-b2″ Don’t put double quotes around the formula When you press enter after entering the formula you should get a zero in the cell. Now you need to autofill this formula down a couple of rows to prefill in the formula. The autofill is the round ball int he lower right corner of the selected cell. Click and drag that autofill down and the formula will be copied down correctly.
In column F we need to create the miles per gallon formula. Milesper gallon is a division, and in computers “/” is the divide operator. So enter the formula into cell F2. This is the formula “=d2/e2″ When you press enter you will get an error message, because you can’t divide by zero. This is an error that we can safely ignore. If it does bother you then put a 1 in cell E2. Autofill F2 and E2 down. Now you have a spreadsheet ready to tell you the mileage.
To use the spreadsheet you need to note down the current odometer reading when next you fill up your car. This is the odometer start reading. On the second fill-up note down the total gallons purchased and the odometer reading. Fill in the appropriate cells. You should get an immediate answer for the previous mpg. Remember to do this for all fill-ups and you should have a real nice indication of your mileage for your car.
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