Is it possible to create two input cells that equal each other?

[MadMax3D]

First off.....Hi. new member. New to site. New to excel. Was born yesterday.

I've been creating spreadsheets for all of two weeks now and I've surprised myself by how much I actually like it. I've been pretty good thus far at solving my own problems until recently. I'm not even sure if this can be done without some VB programing, but I thought I'd ask. Maybe someone has a simple answer. here we go:

I would like to create (on purpose) what I see referred to online as a circular reference. I'm not sure if that is the proper terminology in my instance, but I'm trying to create two separate cells that always equal each other no matter which cell I input data. How can I do this? Is VB the only way? Or is it a button click on a menu somewhere that eludes me?

Thanks for anyone's help in advance!

Cheers

[MrShorty]

but I'm trying to create two separate cells that always equal each other no matter which cell I input data. How can I do this? Is VB the only way?

Yes, VBA is the only way to do what you want, not to mention it would also want to be associated with the change event.

Can I say anything to discourage you from doing this? IMO, a spreadsheet works best when each cell does one thing: input, processing, or output. When you try to get a cell to do too much like this, you unnecessarily complicate your spreadsheets.

Here's how I'd do this: designate one of the two cells as your input cell. Label it, highlight it, etc so you know that that is the cell designated for this input. Cell two can have a simple =cell1 formula so that cell two reflects cell 1's value at all times (if needed, you can protect cell 2 so that it cannot accidentally be overwritten). This gives you a very straightforward spreadsheet without any unnecessary complication.

[MadMax3D]

Hey MrShorty, thanks for the quick reply. I understand about not complicating the spreadsheets too much, but to give you a better understanding of what i'm trying to do, try and picture a spreadsheet comprised of two sheets. Both sheets are used for analysing a real estate property in different ways. The only common input is the first input on both sheets, which would be the purchase price. Now, I know that I can have an input cell on one sheet equal that of a cell on the other sheet, but in the case of the purchase price of a property, i'd like to be able to change the purchase price on one sheet.....analyze the data......go on the next sheet and have that same purchase price analyzed. If I'm not liking the result, change the purchase price on that sheet and have the analysis update on the previous sheet. I wanted to see if I can avoid having to change to sheet "A" if I was working in sheet "B" and vice-versa. I was hoping there was an easy way to dynamically link two cells to always be equal regardless which one you actually used to input a value.

I hope that painted a clearer picture of what I am trying to do. I may consider VBA if it's my only option and l'm dead set on doing it this way.

Thanks again

[MrShorty]

I'm sure there are any number of scenarios like yours where one would like to avoid navigating to the designated input cell. What you describe will require VBA, probably associated with the change event.

[MadMax3D]

Well, I looked into writing code in VBA and I actually got it to work! You mentioned change events, so I did a search and came up with this thread that helped a lot: http://www.excelforum.com/excel-general/686940-cell1-cell2-and-cell2-cell1.html

So I got it working. Everything is good. I transfer it to my tablet, only to find out THEN that the free excel app I'm using (Kingsoft Office) doesn't support VBA (well, for $60 bucks it does), rendering this little experiment useless! lol Looks like I'll be going with your first suggestion of keeping it simple. At the very least I learned something new. Thank you for all your help.