Write Excel Formulas with Scribe

[tv_kid]

I'm trying out Scribe for a project that will involve writing to an Excel template.  The template has a 'summary' sheet that will total values from other sheets etc.  I need to be able to write formulas to this sheet in order to have it create the summaries, e.g "=SUM(Sheet1!M2:M125)"

 

Scribe can write that text into a cell, but somehow it doesn't get recognised as a formula.  I have to click into the cell, move the cursor to the left edge, and hit the backspace, at which point it is recognised.

 

Any ideas on how to remove the need for that last step?

 

Many thanks

 

 

[tv_kid]

Quick update to this, I've just taken a look at the Excel file in TextWrangler.  I located the 'raw' xml for a cell and examined it before it I click into the cell and then after I've hit the 'Enter' key (which it appears is all that's necessary to get it to register as a formula) and saved the file again.

 

Before: 

<c t="s" s="90" r="B13"><v>2536</v></c>

 

After: 

<c r="B13" s="90"><f>SUM(B7:B11)</f><v>74964.45</v></c>

 

I'm guessing that it's the "<f>" tags that determine whether or not it is treated as a formula, rather than plain text (which has been interpreted as a number in the 'before' example above).

 

So, is it possible to specify that the cell should be a 'formula'?  I've looked at the documentation and searched this forum, but can't see anyone else mentioning it, can't believe other people don't need to create formulas dynamically?

 

Thanks

[tv_kid]

Additionally, it appears that cells filled by Scribe do not pick up existing formatting options, i.e if I set a value into a cell, that is formatted with a currency symbol etc, the value appears as plain text unless I click into the cell and hit the Enter key. 

[wbasham]

Scribe does not currently have a feature to write a formula to a cell.  We have added this to our feature request list for consideration in a future version of the plugin.  There are also some peculiarities about the formatting as well.  We are looking into the formatting issue as a possible bug.

[tv_kid]

Thanks Brent, I'd certainly be interested in having formula writing abilities.