On Mon, Feb 28, 2011 at 9:35 AM, Rustom Mody <rustompmody@gmail.com> wrote:

> When using orgmode for hacking on data in a table (org a la spreadsheet)  I
> have this situation
> Say I am concentrating on column 2 and I want the bottom cell to be the sum
> of the above cells
> For a 7 row table with 8th row having the total I get
>
>   #+TBLFM: @8$2=vsum(@1$2..@7$2)
>
> But now I have a problem: If say I add a row to the table then the next
> time I recompute the formula(s) the ninth row is not affected and the 8th
> row which is now data gets overwritten with a computation.
>
> So basically I want the @1 and @7 which are hardcoded above to be replaced
> by something to the effect: "everything above..." and the @8$2 should be
> something to the tune of "bottom of $2"
>

Place the rows you want to sum between horizontal separator lines (see
http://orgmode.org/manual/Built_002din-table-editor.html#Built_002din-table-editor
)

Then you can do the following:

  #+TBLFM: @8$2=vsum(@I..@II)

Which means, sum the columns between the first and the second separators.

-Luke