Place the cursor inside a cell and, on the Table menu, click Formula.
After the equality sign, type in cell references. The references
should be written similar to those in a spreadsheet, where A, B, C,
etc. refers to columns and 1, 2, 3, etc. refers to rows. A1, for
example, refers to the the top-left cell, and A2 is the second cell in
the first column.

To sum the first five cells in the second column, you'd enter the
following formula in the dialog box: =SUM(B1:B5) and then click OK.

Or to sum the numbers of all cells above the current cell, you can
use:

=SUM(ABOVE)

When you add a formula like this, Word enters a formula field in the
current cell (if you prefer, you can insert the field manually; just
press Ctrl+F9 and type the instructions directly). Just like most
fields in Word, formula fields don't update automatically. To force an
update, you can select the current result and press F9.

A huge disadvantage is that you cannot see the column and row
references in Word. Carefully make sure that you refer to the correct
cell in your formulas! You actually get easier calculations in Word if
you embed an Excel spreadsheet (this is also suggested in Word Help).

--
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP


"CW" wrote in message
...
There's tons of mind-boggling stuff in here about how to use cell
references
for calculations in a table, which will be great...if only I knew
how to
enter the refs in the cells in the first place!!!!
Nobody seems to cover that fundamental starting point. Word's
inbuilt Help
doesn't either.
Please explain in simple terms - how do you assign and enter the
cell
references within a table (Word 2002)???
Thank you!