Sum part of a column in another sheet

[jgossage]

I have two sheets that look like this:

Sheet1                                                              Sheet2

A  B C                                                               Category  Value
where B is a cell that should be filled                food             27
automatically from the second sheet                 rent          2000
using a formula that says that it should             food             55
sum all the values from the Value column
in sheet 2 where a parameter supplied in
the formula specifies that the desired
values in the value column are those where
the contents  of the cell in the Category
column equals the desired value.

For example, in the Amount cell B1 sum the values in the Value column of sheet 2 where the associated category is “food”.

I am inexperienced with spreadsheets and would appreciate any help.

[3D4Play]

If I understand your issue correctly, you need Sheet 1 Cell B to be equal to the value in sheet 2 conditional sum cell.

If that’s true, then select cell B on the first sheet, then type “=” (no quotes), switch to the second sheet and click the cell you’ve used for the conditional sum. Then press . This will make Sheet 1 Cell B equal to the result in sheet 2, conditional sum, and Cell B will update whenever the value on sheet 2 changes.

As you do this, you will also see formula bar reflect the cell location you select. For example, assuming the conditional sum cell on sheet 2 is D13, then the formula bar for Sheet 1 Cell B will read this:

=‘Sheet 2’.D13

I hope this is a correct understanding of what you want to do.

Good luck!