this post was submitted on 07 Sep 2025
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Calc: Create categories for specific sums and calculate total of each category (lemmy.cafe)
submitted 3 months ago by icedlattes@lemmy.cafe to c/libreoffice@discuss.tchncs.de
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Hello! I'm a general spreadsheet newbie, I don't have a lot of experience with either Excel or LibreOffice Calc but I'd like to start tracking my monthly spending and wanted to ask if someone could tell me how to do this:

I'm entering every expense with the date and amount and a specific category i.e. groceries, car, fun stuff, etc. (so there are three columns). So far I've just typed in the name of the category but I'd like to create a drop-down menu that allows me to select a category (i.e. "groceries").

In addition to that, I would like to make a "current total" cell for each category, where all the expenses of a certain category (i.e. every expense labelled "groceries") are added and that shows the sum of all those expenses.

Any help is much appreciated <3

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[–] dogpound@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago

My budget tracking solution still lies in Google Sheets because it contains so many formulas that break when converting to .ods that I've been putting it off for about a year now because it will be a lot of work to recreate properly in LibreOffice Calc. So I can't share a full solution with you.

I can help you consolidate your categories into a drop-down though! I recommend creating a new sheet within your workbook that you can hide/unhide as needed to edit your behind-the-scenes information like categories. Step 1 is to add your list of categories somewhere in the sheet like this:

Step 2 is to define the range of categories so that it's easier to use in formulas later. Highlight all the categories, then select Sheet > Named Ranges and Expressions > Define, and give it a name (I use "categories"):

Step 3 is to set up your main sheet to use the new list. Highlight the cell where you want the drop-down list to be, then select Data > Validity > Allow = Cell range > Source = "categories" (or whatever you named your list) > OK:

You should end up with something like this: