I'd think you'll want to pick one of two options.

either have your ingredient list in a set of columns, then your multiplier
column, then your ingredients for the week column. Ingredients for the week
is =ingredientcell * multiplier cell

easy nuff.

Otherwise, if you just want it all in one cell, just enter =3*multiplier in
the egg cell for the omelettes, and make the multiplier 1 for 1 meal....

"annabella" wrote:

i copy a row of ingredients for a meal and paste it into my weekly shopping
list.
each meal's ingredients are lined up in their respective columns ("2" is in
the column "lettuce" because there are 2 cups of lettuce in the dinner salad,
"3" in the "onions" column because there will be three chopped onions, but
there is "0" in the "eggs" column because this salad doesnt have eggs,
however, the row above this row has "3" in the eggs column because it is for
an omelette).
at the bottom of the page there is a running total of the amount of each
ingredient i should buy (a total of "16" in the lettuce column means im using
a total of 16 cups of lettuce that week - buy accordingly)...
the question is, can i have a cell somewhere at each row that can be used as
a multiplier so if i have THREE of the very same meals that week i dont have
to multiply each cell in the row of that meal by three, i could just have a
"3" at the end of the row and it would multiply each amount in the row by
three? like "3" at the end of the "omelette" ingredients row would cause the
amount of eggs necessary to turn to 9, that way i dont have the omelette
listed three times, but can just multiply the one meal ingredients by three?
is this clear enough?
thanks,
annabella