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I would like to continue the Excel autofill tutorial for Windows by demonstrating a few
additional features not covered during the first segment.
The autofill feature allows the user to quickly input months in a series, as well as repeat
a growing pattern. Let us take a look at a second Excel spreadsheet to model additional
autofill features. In this spreadsheet, school months, beginning
in August, will fill the left column. The right column will show the cumulative number
of books that a student has made as a reading goal.
I typed the first month in the series. From the highlighted cell, I drag the fill handle
downward. The months in the series are automatically filled, beginning with August.
Next, I typed 5 in the first cell of the right column. I also need to give more information
in order for the autofill feature to detect the pattern. In this case I typed the second
number in the series. Then, highlight the first and second cells
in the column. Click the autofill handle and drag it downward to highlight the remaining
cells in the column. The autofill feature detects the pattern and adds 5 to each cell
in the series. Note that the autofill feature is useful when
listing numbered weeks, as shown here. The user can also use the autofill feature to
fill in numbered quarters.
After the fourth quarter, the autofill feature repeats the sequence.
This concludes the Excel spreadsheet tutorial for autofill of sequences using the Windows
operating system.