The Formula tab is where the math behind your calculator lives — a real spreadsheet, built into the editor, that turns the values your readers enter into the results they see.
What the Formula tab is
When you open a project and switch to the Formula view, the preview area is replaced by a full spreadsheet. It behaves like the spreadsheets you already know: cells hold numbers, text, or formulas, you can select a cell or a range, and you can paste data in.
The Formula tab is a reference sheet, not a mirror
This is the one idea worth getting right, because everything else follows from it:
- Inputs point at cells. Each input block (Input field, Slider, Dropdown, Selection, Toggle) is assigned to a cell. The number sitting in that cell is a sample value you typed — it is yours to set, and it stays as you left it.
- Results read cells. Each result block points at a cell, and whatever that cell computes is what your reader sees.
- When you publish, the visitor's entry is substituted for each assigned input cell and the whole sheet recomputes in their browser. Your sample values are never sent to them, and their answers never come back into your sheet.
Nothing syncs the other way while you build. Editing a block does not rewrite its cell, and editing a cell does not change the block. The one exception: pointing a block at an empty cell drops the block's current value in once, so you aren't staring at a blank sheet.
The formulas in between are ordinary spreadsheet formulas. See the Formula functions reference for the full list of supported functions.
Linked cells are tinted
Once a block is assigned to a cell, that cell picks up a tint so you can see the wiring at a glance:
- Amber — the cell is read by an input block.
- Green — the cell is shown by a result block.
Click a tinted cell and a chip appears naming the block on the other end — for example B7 · Read by input: Seats or E4 · Shown by result: Total Tax. There's no hover tooltip; you have to click.
No columns are reserved
The whole sheet is yours. Columns A, B, and C are not reserved for anything — you can type into them, assign blocks to them, and write formulas across them like any other column.
The only thing to know is that an import lands starting at column D, so anything you'd already put in A–C survives an import untouched. See Importing Excel, CSV, and TSV for how that offset works.
Autosave
You don't need to save manually. The spreadsheet autosaves a fraction of a second after you stop editing, and it flushes any pending changes when you leave the tab — so your work is never lost on navigation. Undo (Cmd+Z / Ctrl+Z) works as usual for cell edits and imports.
Multiple tabs
A project's spreadsheet can have more than one tab. The first tab is the main sheet — it is the only one that inputs and results connect to. Any additional tabs are static reference data (for example, a rate table that a VLOOKUP reads from). Importing a multi-sheet workbook creates one tab per worksheet automatically. See Working with multiple sheets / reference data.
Where to go next
- Input rows and cell references — how cells are addressed and referenced
- Assigning input blocks to cells — wire an input into the sheet
- Assigning cells to result blocks — show a computed cell to your reader