From The Document Foundation Wiki
- (1) Summary. Suggest the following replacement text – “Calculates the number of individual areas in the supplied list of references. An area may be either a single cell or a range of cells.”.
- (2) Returns. Suggest the following replacement text – “Returns a positive integer which is the number of areas in the supplied list of references”.
- (3) Arguments, 1st paragraph. Suggest the following replacement text – “Reference is a single argument which lists one or more references to cells or cell ranges.”.
- (4) Arguments, new paragraph after existing 1st paragraph. “Single references take the form of a specific cell reference (for example, “$Sheet1.A1”), a specific cell range (for example, “$Sheet1.$C$28:$H$29”), or the name of a named or database range. This function is particularly useful with named ranges defined using Sheet > Named Ranges and Expressions > Define on the Menu bar, because they can be configured to comprise multiple areas by using the tilde reference concatenation operator in the Range or formula expression field of the Define Name dialog.”
- (5) Arguments, 2nd paragraph. Suggest the following replacement text – “Multiple references can be passed as a single argument by providing them in a separated list, surrounded by parentheses – for example, =AREAS((A1:B6, C2:D7, E3:F8)). In this case Calc will reformat your function call to use the tilde reference concatenation operator – for example =AREAS((A1:B6~ C2:D7~ E3:F8)). Alternatively, you can use the tilde reference concatenation operator directly without parentheses – for example =AREAS(A1:B6~ C2:D7~ E3:F8).”.
- (6) Arguments, bullet point. Suggest the following simplification to avoid trying to restate the various options – “If Reference is not a valid list of references then the function returns an error value.”.
- (7) Additional details. It might be worth stating that the function will count repeated or overlapping areas as separate entities. For example, =AREAS(A1~A1~A1) returns 3.
- (8) Examples, 1st example. Delete “because of single argument” (the function only accepts one argument).
- (9) Examples, 2nd example. Change 1st sentence to “The function returns the number of areas passed by the reference which in this case is 3”.
- (10) Example, 3rd example. Change “where defined an area named All under Data > Define Range” to “where All is the name of a database range created via Data > Define Range on the Menu bar“. Change “of a single argument” to “database ranges comprise a single area”.
- (11) Example, 4th example. Would the following be a slightly simpler explanation in the Description field – “The function returns an error value because the multiple references have not been enclosed in parentheses.”?
- (12) Examples, general. Some additional examples might be helpful. For example, =AREAS(A1~A1:B3~B2~B3). Or =AREAS(NamedRange) where the named range comprises multiple areas. Perhaps also =AREAS($Sheet1.A1:$Sheet3.C5), using a range of cells across multiple sheets.