帳面

Chomen

“notebook or register”

the spreadsheet. A sovereign spreadsheet: grid, formulas, and recalculation in one file that needs no account, server, or network.

Version 0.0.1Built Copyright © 2026 Allan M. Schiffman
A bound Japanese ledger and soroban

On the iPhone: A Jimae file saved on an iPhone will not run by itself. See steps to install and use Jimae there.

Chomen is part of the Jimae family of sovereign applications, built on the Autarky sovapp development platform.

Chomen is proprietary source-available software. All rights reserved; redistribution requires explicit written permission.

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Chomen Help

What this file is

Everything you need to open, edit and save this workbook is inside the file you are reading. There is no account, no server, and no network — Chomen works the same on a plane as on a desk, and it will still open in ten years if you keep a copy.

Chomen takes its name from chōmen (帳面), Japanese for a notebook or register—a little place to keep track of what matters.

Saving writes a new copy of this same file with your workbook in it. That is why a saved workbook can be mailed, archived, or handed to someone who has never heard of Chomen: the application travels with the data.

Files and Excel interchange

The File menu owns New, Open, Save, Save As, Import and Export. Save writes the last target again; before one exists it behaves as Save As. CSV import and export are explicitly one-sheet operations, while Excel workbook import and export carry all sheets.

Excel interchange is a safe subset: values, compatible formulas, number formats, basic cell styles, row and column sizes, merged cells, charts, tables and pivot tables are kept. Comments and other unsupported presentation features are dropped with a warning. Macro-enabled or legacy Excel files, external links, connections, queries, embedded objects and other active content are refused.

A table crosses both ways: its name, its columns, their totals functions and calculated formulas, its banding and its filter dropdowns all travel, and a formula written with Table1[Price] still says that when Excel opens it. A table Excel wrote without a header row has no shape here and is dropped with its cells kept, and a filter's criteria are dropped while its columns stay.

A sheet's page setup comes across: its paper, orientation, margins, scale, page order, whether gridlines and headings print, its print area, and the rows and columns Excel repeats on every page. Repeated rows or columns that do not begin at the top left of what the sheet prints are dropped with a warning, as are paper sizes outside the five Chomen lays out on; an indent deeper than fifteen steps is reduced to fifteen. A print area is a single rectangle here, so one naming several rectangles, or naming whole columns or whole rows as Excel writes it when the area is picked from the headers, is dropped with a warning and can be set again on the selection.

A workbook that carries a print setup, a picture, a preview thumbnail or a hyperlink in a cell still opens: each is dropped, the cells under it are kept, and the status line names what went. A hyperlink keeps its text and loses its address, which Chomen never follows; a link to another workbook is an external link, and is refused, and a defined name that reaches into one is dropped.

Printing or saving as PDF

Print or save as PDF… in the File menu (or Ctrl+P / Cmd+P) lays the whole sheet out on pages — never just the part on screen — and then opens your browser's print dialog, which can send the pages to a printer or save them as a PDF. Choose the paper size, orientation and margins; a scale or fit all columns on one page width; how many leading rows and columns repeat on every page; and whether gridlines and row and column headings are printed. Rows and columns are never split across a page, hidden ones are left out, and a sheet wider than a page is tiled in the order you pick.

The page setup belongs to the sheet. Apply stores it without printing and Print… stores it on the way, each as one step Undo takes back; it is saved in the workbook, carried to and from Excel, and each sheet has its own. Printing without changing anything stores nothing, so the workbook stays as saved as it was.

Set print area offers the selection as what the sheet prints, and Clear print area offers the whole sheet again; Apply or Print stores that choice with the sheet, and Cancel throws it away, as with every other field here. Choosing Selection under Print prints what is selected for that one run and leaves the stored print area alone.

Encrypting a workbook

Choose Encrypt… from the application menu to protect the next saved file with a password. Passwords start masked; the eye buttons can reveal either entry while you check it. Chomen cannot recover a lost password. An encrypted workbook offers Change password… instead.

Getting around

Entering data

Freezing rows and columns

Select a cell in the last row or column you want to hold still, then choose Freeze up to row 3 or Freeze up to column B — each entry names the line it would draw — from the toolbar’s overflow menu or from a right-click. The rows above the line and the columns left of it stay on screen while the rest of the sheet scrolls under them, so a heading row and a column of labels stay beside what they describe. Unfreeze releases both bands, and is offered only while something is frozen. Each is one step: Undo puts the earlier line back.

One click on a column header selects the whole of that column, which names a column line and no row line: the row entry offers the top of the band instead, Freeze up to row 1, because the far end of a whole column is the last row of the sheet and nobody means to hold that still. A row header does the same the other way round.

The inspector’s Panes group sets the two counts directly, which is how you freeze a band without first selecting it or raise one without touching the other. The counts are positional, as they are in Excel and Google Sheets: freezing three rows freezes the first three, so inserting or deleting a row inside the band changes what is held still and not how much of it. The frozen rows and columns travel with the workbook, are saved in the file, and are carried to and from Excel.

A window too short for the band you asked for shows fewer frozen rows rather than leaving nothing to scroll; widening the window shows the rest again, and the stored counts never change. A merge that crosses the line is drawn on both sides of it and cut at the line. Printing is unaffected: a frozen row is printed where it sits, and the print dialog’s Rows repeated at the top of every page is what puts a heading on every page.

Indenting and default formats

The inspector's Text tab indents a cell's contents in steps of about three characters, from none to fifteen. An indent pushes the text away from the side it is aligned to — left-aligned text moves right, right-aligned text moves left — and a centred cell shows none, which is what Excel does with the same setting. Indents travel in the workbook and to and from Excel.

A row or a column can carry a default format: what a cell in it wears when its own formatting says nothing. Format a cell the way you want the rest to look, then use Rows or Columns in the inspector's Sheet tab to hand that format to every row or column the selection covers. Clear default format takes it off both again. All three are greyed out when the cell you are on has no formatting to hand over, or when the selection names no rows or columns of its own — selecting the whole sheet names neither.

Formatting resolves one field at a time, in this order: the cell's own, then its row's, then its column's, then Chomen's default. So a column of dates can be set once and a single cell inside it made bold without losing the date format. A default format is not the same as formatting every cell: it costs the file one entry per row or column rather than one per cell, and it reaches rows that have nothing typed in them yet.

Links and notes

Choose Insert link… (Ctrl+K) from the toolbar’s overflow menu or a right-click to put a link on the selected cell. The address can be a web address, an email address written mailto:someone@example.com, or a place in this workbook written Sheet2!A1; typing example.com is enough, and the https:// is added for you. Text to show is what an empty cell shows for the link — a cell with text of its own keeps that text. A linked cell is drawn underlined and in blue.

A link opens only when you ask it to: Ctrl-click the cell, or Cmd-click on a Mac. A plain click selects the cell as usual, and nothing opens by itself — not when the file is opened, not when the sheet is drawn, not when a file is imported. A link into this workbook moves the selection instead of opening a window. Opening the dialog again edits the link; Remove link takes it off and leaves what the cell holds.

Comment…, beside it in both menus, leaves a note on the selected cell. The cell then shows a small corner mark, and the note appears when the pointer rests on the cell or the selection lands on it. Author starts as the workbook’s author from Properties, can be changed, and is remembered until you close the tab. The inspector’s Cell tab reads out the link and the note on the cell the two commands act on — the one the selection is being moved by, not its first cell — which is the way to both without a pointer; a screen reader hears a note when the selection lands on the cell it is on. Notes are notes: there are no replies, no threads and no mentions.

A link and a note belong to their cell. They travel with a copy or a cut, fall with a deleted row or column, come back with Undo, and are saved in the file. Both are carried to and from Excel — a note travels as an ordinary comment, so Excel shows it — and a comment thread from Excel arrives as its text without its replies.

Sorting

Select the range to sort, then pick the Sort range entry for the direction you want — from the toolbar's overflow menu or from a right-click. Each one names the column it orders by, which is the first column of the selection. The whole row travels with its key: formulas, number formats and colours included. A formula follows its own row, so =B2*C2 reads =B5*C5 once that row lands on row 5, while a reference written with $ keeps pointing where it did. Empty cells sort last whichever direction you pick, and one Undo puts the range back.

Sort range…, beside those two entries, opens a dialog for anything more: up to eight keys, each a column of the range and a direction, where a later key decides only between rows the earlier ones tie on. Data has a header row keeps the first row where it is and names the keys by its text. Sort the block around the selection sorts every row of the block of data the selection sits in, bounded by blank rows and columns; it starts ticked when the selection is inside a larger block, so clicking one cell of a table and choosing Sort range… sorts the table. The line above the buttons says which rows will move before you press Sort. Ascending puts numbers before text, text before FALSE and TRUE, and errors after those; descending reverses that; empty cells stay last under every key either way.

Only the sorted cells move. A formula outside the range that refers to a row inside it still refers to that position, which now holds a different row. Row heights and hidden rows belong to the row rather than to the cells in it, so they stay where they are. Merged cells are not sorted: a range that contains one is refused, unless the merge sits in a header row that stays in place. Split the merge first, or sort a range that leaves it out.

Filtering rows

Select a cell in the list, or the range itself, and choose Create filter over A1:D40 — the entry names the range it would cover — from the toolbar's overflow menu or from a right-click. The range's first row is its header, and every cell of that row gains a small arrow. Clicking one opens that column's dropdown: Sort A to Z and Sort Z to A order the rows under the header, a condition can be set on the column's text or numbers, and the list of values below lets you tick the ones to keep. The search box narrows the list, Select all and Unselect all move every box at once, and the list offers the first 10,000 different values a column holds.

A row is shown when every filtered column admits it, so ticking one region and setting a number condition on another leaves the rows that are both. The conditions on text are is, contains, does not contain, begins with and ends with, and they ignore upper and lower case; the conditions on numbers are the six comparisons and is between, which includes both ends. Blanks and Non-blanks split on whether the cell shows anything at all. A column's arrow is marked while that column is filtering, so a short list explains itself, and Clear this column's filter or Clear filter puts the rows back.

The criteria are saved with the workbook; which rows they hide is worked out again every time the sheet recalculates, so a filter over a column of formulas follows what those formulas now say. Rows you hide yourself are a separate thing: clearing a filter leaves them hidden, and a filter never unhides one. Copying from a filtered range takes the rows you can see and pastes them together, and a formula in it goes on reading the rows it came with; one that read a row the filter hides comes across as #REF!, which Chomen says on the status line. A formula reading another sheet moves as far as its own row moved, which is what any copy does to it; if that would carry it above the first row it comes across as #REF! too, and Chomen says so. Pasting into a filtered range lands on the rows you can see and steps over the rest, a sort of a filtered range moves the visible rows and leaves the others where they are, and printing leaves the hidden rows out. A cut that would span a row the filter hides is refused whatever column it is in; copy the visible rows instead. Deleting the header row removes the filter with it.

A filter covers at most 262,144 cells, a column filters on at most 8,192 ticked values, and a condition compares at most 255 characters; a longer condition, and a value list with nothing ticked, are refused rather than stored. A filter that grew past that size, because rows were inserted inside it or because it came in a file that way, filters nothing; its dropdown says so and offers only Clear filter. Excel's filters are read and written: value lists and the text and number conditions both ways, while its top-ten and its date filters, a column stating a condition Chomen does not have, and a column listing more values than Chomen stores are each dropped with a note and come in unfiltered. A filter Excel wrote over whole columns is trimmed to the rows the file holds. A condition on text that compares a value which reads as a number comes back from Excel as a condition on numbers, the file stating the value and not its kind. A file's hidden rows inside a filtered range are worked out again from its criteria rather than trusted, which Chomen says once when it happens.

Removing duplicate rows

Select the range, then choose Remove duplicates… beside the sort entries in the toolbar's overflow menu or from a right-click. The dialog lists the selection's columns: a row is a duplicate when the ticked columns show the same text as an earlier row, upper or lower case alike, and Data has a header row keeps the first row out of the comparison. Duplicates are removed, the rows below them move up within the selection, and the cells left at its bottom are cleared; nothing outside the selection moves. The status line says how many rows went and how many unique rows remain, and one Undo puts them all back.

Rows are compared by what they display, not by what they hold: the same date shown in two formats makes two rows, while a number and a piece of text that read the same make one. A formula that moves up follows its own row, as it does in a sort.

Tables

Select the cells and press Ctrl+T, or choose Create table… beside the sort entries in the toolbar's overflow menu or from a right-click. My table has headers starts ticked when the first row reads like one — text over something that is not — and names the columns by it; unticked, a row of Column1, Column2 is inserted above your data instead. A table is drawn with a coloured header, banded rows and a handle at its bottom-right corner you can drag to cover more or fewer cells.

A table grows as you work: type in the row below it or the column beside it and the table takes that row or column in, as one step that one Undo takes back. Type a formula into a data cell and it becomes the whole column's — every row of the column gets it, translated for its own row, and so does every row the table gains afterwards. Type a value over one of those cells and the column stops being calculated.

A formula can name a table's parts instead of its addresses: Table1[Price] is that column's data rows, Table1[#Headers] its header row, Table1[#Totals] its totals row, Table1[#All] the whole of it, Table1[[Item]:[Price]] a span of columns, and [@Price] the cell of that column on the row you are writing in. These follow the table as it grows and are rewritten when you rename it. The box at the left of the formula bar takes one too.

The Table group on the inspector's Sheet tab renames the table and its columns — every formula that used them follows — turns on a Totals row and picks what each column totals, and chooses how the table is banded. A total is computed with SUBTOTAL, so a hidden row stays out of it. The dropdown on a header cell sorts the table by that column, moving its data rows and leaving the header and the totals row where they are.

A cut of exactly a table's rectangle moves the table with the cells; a cut of part of it moves cells only and leaves the table where it was. Deleting rows inside a table shrinks it and inserting rows inside it grows it, but deleting its header row while leaving data behind is refused, because a table without a header is not a table — use Convert to range first. That command turns a table back into ordinary cells, keeping every value and formula and writing each structured reference as the range it stood for.

Two commands ask for room before they take it. A totals row needs the row under the table to be empty: if a value is already there, Chomen says so and leaves both alone rather than taking those cells into the table, so clear the row first. A row you have only shaded or bordered is empty for this, since there is nothing in it to clear. A cut that would land a table on another table, or on merged cells, is refused for the same reason — a table may not cover either — and nothing is moved.

Highlighting cells by a rule

Select the cells, then choose Conditional formatting… from the toolbar's overflow menu or from a right-click, which opens the inspector's Conditional highlighting group, and press Add rule…. Pick what a cell must be — greater than a number, between two, containing a word, empty, holding a date before one, repeated elsewhere in the range, among the highest, above the average, or making a formula true — and what a match should look like: bold, italic, underline, strikethrough, a fill, a text colour, a number format, or any combination. Colour scale colours the range by value instead, from the lowest to the highest with an optional midpoint. The rules are saved in the file, are carried to and from Excel, and one Undo puts a rule back.

The inspector's Conditional highlighting group lists the rules over the selection and is where a rule is changed, deleted or moved. Order is priority: the first rule that matches a cell decides each part of its look, and a rule below it can only add what the one above left alone — so a rule that sets a fill and a rule that sets bold both show, while two fills go to the higher rule. Move up and Move down change that order. Stop if this rule matches ends the walk at a match, so no rule below it is tried on that cell.

A formula rule is written for the first cell of the range and read for every other the way a copied formula is: over A1:A9, =A1>B1 tests each row against its own, while =A1>$B$1 tests every row against B1. A formula that cannot be read, or that works out to an error or to text, matches nothing rather than everything. Values you type are read exactly as they are in a cell: 10 is a number, TRUE is a boolean, =B1 is a reference and anything else is text.

Rules that have to read the whole range — repeated and unique values, the highest and lowest, the averages and a colour scale — stop working once their range covers more than 262,144 cells; the message line says so when you save such a rule, and the list marks it. Cells two of a rule's ranges both cover count once towards that figure. Copying and pasting does not carry rules: a rule covers the cells it was given until you change it. Data bars and icon sets are not built, and an Excel file carrying one opens with the rest of its rules and a note saying what went; so does a file whose rule asks for more than Chomen holds, under a note that says it was a limit rather than the kind. A rule Excel applied to a whole column arrives covering the whole column, which is past that figure.

Controlled entry: lists, checkboxes and limits

Select the cells, choose Data validation… beside the sort entries in the toolbar's overflow menu or from a right-click, and say what they accept: a value from a list you type or from a range of the workbook, a checkbox, a whole number, a number, a date or text of a given length against a comparison, or a formula of your own that has to come out true. When an entry does not fit chooses between refusing it and taking it with a line in the status bar. Leave Message empty for the standard wording, or write the sentence you want the reader to see. Apply puts the rule on the selection and Remove rule takes it off; each is one step for Undo, and the rules travel with the workbook. Opened on a cell that already has a rule, the dialog shows that rule, and the line under the buttons says what Apply will do: replace it, when your selection is the whole of it, or put a new rule on the selection alone and leave the rest of the older one in force. Remove rule takes off the whole of a rule, not only the part you have selected.

A cell under a list rule draws a small chevron: click it to pick from the list, which is written into the cell as though you had typed it. A cell under a checkbox rule that holds TRUE or FALSE draws a box instead of the word; click it, or press Space on it, to turn it over in one step. An empty cell under the rule draws an empty box, so a column of them is ready to tick; a cell holding anything else keeps showing what it holds until you type TRUE or FALSE into it.

Typing, the formula bar, the picker and a script are checked. Filling, pasting and importing are not, which is what Excel does, so a rule can be laid over cells that already break it and nothing is marked. A formula is judged by the value it works out to, an empty cell always passes, and a rule whose list or formula cannot be read lets everything through rather than locking the cells. A whole number, a number and a date all mean a number to Chomen — a date is the number the day stands for — so a date rule accepts a date serial rather than a date you spell out. A list accepts a value written plainly or written the way the cell's number format shows it, so a column formatted to two decimals still takes the 2 its list offers; a list drawn from a range reads at most 262,144 cells of that range.

Excel carries every one of these but the checkbox, which has no standard form: exporting keeps the TRUE and FALSE the cells hold, drops the box, and says so. A list you typed is written as one line of comma-separated values, as Excel writes it, so a value with a comma in it comes back as two, and a list longer than the 255 characters Excel reads is written out whole with a note that Excel will not offer it.

Finding and replacing

Find and replace… in the toolbar's overflow menu searches the sheet you are on. Match case tells upper case from lower, and Match entire cell contents requires the whole cell to equal what you typed rather than merely contain it.

Search in: Formulas looks at what was typed — so =SUM(A1:A9) matches SUM, not its total. Values looks at what the sheet worked out instead; it can find, but not replace, because a computed value has nowhere to be written back to. Replace all is a single step, so one Undo puts the whole sheet back.

A replacement does not retype the cell. A cell holding text still holds text afterwards, so a part number like 00123 keeps its leading zeros, and a cell holding a formula is read back the way the formula bar would read it.

Formulas

Chomen knows about 330 worksheet functions and follows Excel's rules for them, including the ones that are arguably wrong but which every spreadsheet agrees on. If a formula gives an answer Excel would not, that is a bug worth reporting.

A reference such as A1 moves when you insert or delete rows and columns, and the $ in $A$1 governs copying and filling rather than protecting it from that. A formula that refers to a deleted cell shows #REF!.

Formulas that spill

A formula whose result is a list or a table spills: the values fill the cells below and to the right of the formula, which stays in the cell you typed it into. =SORT(A2:A9), =UNIQUE(B2:B99), =FILTER(A2:C50,D2:D50), =SEQUENCE(5), =TRANSPOSE(A1:C2) and =TEXTSPLIT(A1,",") all spill, and so does a range on its own, such as =A1:A5. The spilled cells hold nothing themselves: select one and the formula bar shows the formula, greyed, while a thin outline marks the whole range. Editing or typing in a spilled cell edits the formula in the cell that spills.

A spill needs empty cells. When something is in the way — a value, another formula, another spill, or merged cells — the formula shows #SPILL! and nothing spills until the cell is cleared. Formatting on its own is not in the way, and a spilled value takes the number format of the cell it lands in. A result with nothing in it shows #CALC!. Neither can be typed: entered by hand, they are text. A formula that reads a cell it would spill into refers to itself: the circular-reference warning appears, the cell reads 0, and nothing spills. A spill covers at most 262,144 cells.

A1# means the whole range spilled from A1, however large it is at the moment, so =SUM(A1#) follows the spill as it grows or shrinks. @ asks for one value instead of a range: =@A1:A5 gives the entry on the formula's own row, as a range on its own did before spilling existed. Inside a longer formula a range still means the entry on your row or column — =A1:A5*2 doubles one cell, not five — and a function that wants a single value takes the first cell of a list it is handed. Only the whole result of a formula spills.

Named ranges

A name stands for a range or a value, so a formula can read =SUM(Sales) instead of =SUM(Sheet1!$A$2:$A$13). Select the cells, choose Define name… from the toolbar's overflow menu or a right-click, and type the name; Refers to starts as the selection, written with its sheet and with $, and can be changed to another range or to a value such as 0.2. The quicker way is the box at the left of the formula bar: select the cells, type the name over the address and press Enter. Typing a name that already exists selects its cells instead.

A name is letters, digits, underscores and dots, starts with a letter or an underscore, and cannot look like a cell reference; Sales, sales and SALES are one name. Every workbook's names are one list, shared by all its sheets. A name follows its cells when rows, columns or sheets move, exactly as a formula does.

Manage names…, in the overflow menu, lists every name. Choose one to change what it refers to, or its spelling: renaming rewrites every formula and every other name that used it. Delete removes a name and leaves the formulas that used it reading #NAME?, which is also what a name that was never defined shows. Each of these is one step for Undo.

Charts

Select the cells to plot and choose Insert chart… from the toolbar's overflow menu or a right-click. The dialog arrives already filled in from the selection: a first row of text names the series, a first column of text names the points along the bottom, and every other column becomes a series; a selection one row tall is one series along the row, named by a first cell of text. Change the Chart type — column, stacked column, bar, line, area, pie, doughnut or scatter — give it a Title and axis titles, choose where the Legend sits, and press Insert chart. The chart is drawn over the grid, anchored to the cell it starts on.

A chart holds the ranges its series name, not a copy of their numbers, so it redraws whenever those cells change — including when a formula recalculates. Hidden rows and hidden columns are left out of what it plots. The numbers along the value axis are shown in the format of the cells they came from, so a column of currency reads as currency. Each series takes its colour from one fixed palette in the order the series are listed, and a ninth series starts the palette again.

Click a chart to select it, then drag it to move it or drag a corner to resize it; the arrow keys move a selected chart and Shift with an arrow resizes it. Double-click it, or press Enter on it, to open its dialog again, where Remove chart takes it off the sheet; Delete on a selected chart does the same, and never clears the cells underneath it. Each of these is one step for Undo. A chart moves with its anchor cell as rows and columns are inserted, deleted, resized or hidden, and it goes when that cell does.

If the cells a series names are deleted, the chart draws an empty frame saying which source no longer exists rather than quietly plotting nothing; Undo brings the cells and the chart back together. A chart prints on the page its anchor cell falls on, at the page's own scale. A series reads at most 262,144 cells, and a chart plots at most 255 series. A series longer than the 4,096 points a chart draws, and a chart whose cells hold no number at all, say so under the marks rather than looking complete. A title, an axis title and a series name are each at most 255 characters; longer text is refused rather than shortened.

A chart travels to and from Excel. Exporting writes each chart as the drawing and chart parts Excel expects, anchored to the same cells it sits on here, so it opens as a chart rather than a picture; the numbers are not written with it, because Excel reads them from the cells the series name and recomputes the chart on opening. Importing reads back the same eight kinds. A chart of a kind Chomen does not draw — three-dimensional, radar, bubble, stacked bar, a percentage stack — and a picture in the same drawing are dropped with a warning that names what went, and the cells stay. A chart whose numbers live in another workbook refuses the file, as any external link does. A pie or a doughnut loses its axis titles on the way out, because a pie in Excel has no axes to put them on. A series whose cells were deleted cannot be written into a chart part: it is left out of the file and the export says so, naming the sheet.

Pivot tables

A pivot table summarises a block of data: one column's values down the side, another's across the top, and a number in the middle for every pair. Select the cells whose first row names the columns and choose Insert pivot table… from the toolbar's overflow menu or a right-click. The dialog lists one row per column of your data; for each, say where it goes — Down the side, Across the top, Summarised, A filter or Not used — and press Insert pivot table. The summary is drawn to the right of your data, tinted so you can see how far it reaches.

A summarised column is added up by default; the box beside it offers Count, Count of numbers, Average, Minimum, Maximum, Product, and standard deviation and variance for a sample or for the whole population. A column down the side or across the top can be ordered by its label or by what the first summarised column computes for it, either way round, and can carry a subtotal after each of its groups; the innermost one never does, because its groups are single lines already. Grand total under the rows and Grand total beside the columns add the totals of everything. A filter column keeps only the values you name, separated by commas; leave it empty to keep them all.

There is nothing to refresh. A pivot table holds the cells it reads, not a copy of their numbers, so it is worked out again after every recalculation: change a value, add a row inside the block, or let a formula recalculate, and the summary has already followed. Put the caret anywhere in a summary and choose Insert pivot table… again to open that pivot rather than start a new one, where Remove pivot table takes it off the sheet. Each of these is one step for Undo.

A summary needs empty cells, exactly as a spilled formula does. When something is in the way — a value a paste, a fill or an opened file put there, a formula, a spill, merged cells or another summary — the pivot's first cell shows #SPILL! and nothing is drawn until that cell is cleared. A formula that spills over a summary takes the cells and the summary steps aside until you move one of them. Typing into a summary is refused, and the message line names the pivot table that draws the cell; change the pivot table instead. The one cell a blocked summary leaves is still yours: type into it and what you typed stays, and the summary is not drawn at all. If the cells it reads are deleted, its first cell shows #REF! and one Undo brings both back.

Groups are made from what a cell shows, so two numbers that display the same are one group; an empty cell is its own group, called (blank). A combination your data does not have is not given a line. A pivot reads at most 262,144 cells and covers at most that many; a column can go 16 deep on each side, hold at most 32,768 different values, and a sheet can hold 64 pivot tables. Past any of those, the first cell says #VALUE! where the summary could not be worked out and #SPILL! where it would not fit. A formula reads a summary's cells by their addresses like any others; there is no GETPIVOTDATA.

To keep only the rows whose cell in a filter column shows nothing, name (blank) in that column's box. What the file records is the group you meant rather than the word for it, so the same rows are kept whatever language the workbook is opened in. A cell whose text happens to read (blank) is a group of its own beside the empty one, and the box cannot tell the two apart.

A summary is part of the sheet. A highlight rule whose range covers it paints its numbers as it paints any others. A link or a note you put on one of those cells stays there and is still drawn, because the summary is laid over the cell rather than written into it. A filter hides rows, and a row it hides takes that line of the summary with it — but the summary still reads every row of the cells it summarises, hidden or not, so narrow a pivot table with its own filter columns rather than with the sheet's. A print area decides what prints: one drawn around a summary prints it and one drawn beside it leaves it out, while printing the whole sheet always reaches it.

Copying a summary copies the numbers you can see, and pasting them lands ordinary values; cutting its cells moves nothing, because they hold nothing, and the summary stays where it was. Sorting or filling over a summary leaves it alone for the same reason. Printing the sheet reaches a summary even when it stands past the last cell you have typed in.

Excel interchange carries the definition in — where the data is, which columns go where and what each is summarised by — and drops Excel's stored copy of the data with a warning, because Chomen works the numbers out from the cells instead. Going the other way, the summary is written as ordinary cells with a warning naming it: Excel sees the right numbers and no longer sees a pivot table.

When something goes wrong

If two cells refer to each other, neither can be worked out first. Chomen shows them as zero and says so in the status bar rather than guessing.

Launching other Jimae files, and iPhone

Open loads another file into the current app. Launch starts the app carried by the selected Jimae file, replacing this page.

Launch runs a Jimae file in its own application, replacing this page, only after its application signature and material verify against the family release key. Complete and Compact use the same signature; a missing or invalid signature is refused, without an override. To recover an older file, Open it in a trusted current Chomen and Save: supported data is read without running the old application. Nothing from the selected file enters this workbook.

On iPhone, a saved Jimae file will not run by itself. Open Chomen from the family site instead, add it to the Home Screen, and launch it once while online: the About box then says Ready offline. From then on the Home Screen app runs with no connection, and the File menu’s Open and Launch commands read files you have saved to Files — a file that arrived by mail goes there through Share and Save to Files.

Your privacy

Chomen does not send your workbook anywhere, does not phone home, and has no analytics. The only network request it can make is a check for updates, and only when you ask for one from the About box — it carries no workbook data and no identifier.