Abstract: A process and apparatus for recalculating the contents of a spreadsheet's cells when they are affected by a modification of one or more cells in the spreadsheet is disclosed. After a spreadsheet has been modified, each cell in the spreadsheet is examined only once to determine the order of the cell recalculation and only the affected cells are recalculated. A list indicating which cells have been modified is maintained at all times in the computer prior to recalculation. When the computer is instructed to update the values in the spreadsheet cells, the recalculation method begins by placing an indication of cells affected by modification, one by one, on either of two lists independently maintained by the computer in storage: the final list (L LIST) if all cells in its Dependency Set (the set of cells affected by a modification to this cell) are already in the final list, or the intermediate list (R LIST) if it has a cell in its Dependency Set which is not already in the final list.