Column formulas are formulas in a table that perform calculations on the table data. Canvas formulas are formulas embedded in the canvas. They can be freestanding and independent or tied to data from anywhere else in the document to help summarize or aggregate key data or metrics.

Let's see this in action. Let's say you're buying fruit for your four-person apartment and need to figure out how much each person owes. In the table of Fruit below, you can use the column formula

to calculate total cost per fruit by multiplying the Price/Pound and Pounds column values:

Then, you can then use a formula on the canvas

to obtain a cost per each person by dividing the total cost by four:

Now, we have the table for a deeper look at data, but a handy shortcut to the most important question we have on the canvas as well.
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You can find an overview of Coda's formula language here and a full list of Coda's formulas here.