Organize Worksheets and Build a Cross-Sheet Summary in Gnumeric

Build a two-month expense workbook with separate input sheets and one summary. The useful check is whether the summary follows the correct source after a sheet is copied, renamed or moved.

Scope and starting point

These instructions were checked against the online Gnumeric manual and official 1.12.62 source on 2026-10-19. They describe the desktop interface with English labels. No fresh native application run was available; the results below are independently calculated expectations, not observed screenshots. Linux packages, translations and older builds can label controls differently.

Start a new workbook. Use the sheet-tab context menu (normally right-click) and Rename to name the first sheet January. Save as expense-summary.gnumeric in Gnumeric format. All references here stay inside this workbook.

Enter this complete synthetic table in January!A1:C5. Enter the formulas separately if your clipboard import treats formulas as text.

Cell / row	A: Category	B: Budget	C: Actual
1	Category	Budget	Actual
2	Supplies	120	108
3	Travel	200	225
4	Training	80	60
5	Total	=SUM(B2:B4)	=SUM(C2:C4)

January should total 400 budget and 393 actual. Check that B5 and C5 contain formulas in the formula entry area, not pasted totals.

Duplicate the structure, then change the inputs

1. Open January’s sheet-tab context menu and choose Duplicate. Gnumeric creates a separate sheet beside it; a generated suffix makes its name unique.
2. Rename the duplicate February. Edit only C2:C4 to 115, 190, 75. Keep the budgets and total formulas.
3. Check February!B5 = 400 and February!C5 = 380. Return to January and confirm its actuals are still 108, 225 and 60. A duplicate is an independent worksheet, not a second view of January.
4. Use Append on the sheet-tab context menu to create another empty sheet. Rename it Summary. Append places it at the end; Insert instead adds a sheet before the selected one.
5. Open Manage Sheets from the same context menu. Select Summary’s row and use Up until it precedes January and February. Close the dialog. Moving the tab does not make Summary part of either source total.

Build explicit cross-sheet links

Enter this table on Summary:

Cell / row	A: Period	B: Budget	C: Actual	D: Variance
1	Period	Budget	Actual	Actual minus budget
2	January	=January!B5	=January!C5	=C2-B2
3	February	=February!B5	=February!C5	=C3-B3
4	Combined	=SUM(B2:B3)	=SUM(C2:C3)	=C4-B4

Expected rows are 400, 393, -7; 400, 380, -20; and 800, 773, -27. Negative variance means below budget in this model. The independent check is 108 + 225 + 60 + 115 + 190 + 75 = 773.

The exclamation mark separates a worksheet name from a cell address. A name containing spaces needs quoting: after renaming January to January Actual, a direct reference is ='January Actual'!C5.

Change, rename and recover

1. Change February!C3 from 190 to 210. February!C5 and Summary!C3 should become 400; Summary!C4 becomes 793, and Summary!D4 becomes -7.
2. Restore February!C3 to 190. Check 380, 773 and -27 again. This separates a live cross-sheet formula from a copied value.
3. In Manage Sheets, enter January Actual in January’s New Name field, press Enter, then click Apply Name Changes. The manual documents reference updates on applying name changes. Inspect Summary!C2 for the renamed reference and confirm the total remains 773.
4. Move February before January Actual with Up. The explicit references should still return the same totals. Put the preferred order back, save, close and reopen the exact native file, then repeat the baseline checks.

Do not delete a source sheet to rename it. Removing referenced data can break formulas. If a mistaken operation is recent, undo it before continuing; after reopening, use the saved backup rather than relying on session undo history.

Extend the workbook deliberately

For March, duplicate February, rename the copy, and replace its actuals. Add a distinct March row on Summary and expand its combined SUM ranges. Merely creating March does not extend these explicit references. Keeping one row per source makes included months visible; avoid a sheet-span total if reordering tabs could silently alter which months belong in the calculation.

For a larger model, keep each monthly sheet’s columns and total addresses consistent, and record the period in the sheet itself as well as its tab. Duplication also carries existing inputs, so clear or replace them before treating the new month as complete.

Troubleshooting

• Renamed sheet not reflected: in Manage Sheets, typing a New Name is not enough; apply the name changes and inspect the reference.
• Summary contains a number rather than a formula: re-enter the explicit source formula and rerun the change test.
• Duplicate name warning: choose a unique worksheet name; do not remove the existing source just to free its name.
• Unexpected total after adding March: check each summary row and SUM boundary. Adding a tab alone is not inclusion.
• Source changes but summary does not: inspect the formula’s sheet and cell, then use Edit → Recalculate. Check the workbook’s calculation mode if the result stays stale.

Use SUM for the totals. For transferring the workbook, see Gnumeric file compatibility; exporting CSV cannot preserve this multi-sheet model.

Primary references

Reviewed 2026-10-19: Managing Worksheets, Data Types and formula references, and official Gnumeric 1.12.62 source, doc/C/worksheets.xml and doc/C/data-types.xml.