Auto Fill Feature - Spreadsheet

Auto Fill Feature:

You have learnt how to copy and paste a formula from one cell to other cells in the previous section. The process of Copy and paste can be replaced by a click and drag and it is called as “Auto Fill”. This is an alternate way to copy and paste.

Auto Fill feature fills the contents from one cell to all the dragged cells. The content may be a data or formula. If you fill a relative formula, all the addresses of filled formulae will be changed.

Cell pointer’s “Drag fill handle” is used to auto fill. Just click and drag this handle to fill the contents. It can be dragged towards right or down. Same can be achieved by Edit oFill -> Down (or) Edit -> Fill -> Right.

1. Auto Fill Series:

Auto Fill is also used to generate a series of values. For example, if you want to generate 1,2,3……. up to some length; it can be done by a simple click and dragging over.

Generating  whole  number  series:

Step 1: In cell A1, type as 1 (one) and press enter

Step 2: click A1 to place the cell pointer

Step 3: Click “Drag Fill Handle” of cell pointer; now the mouse pointer becomes a small +

Step 4: Drag over the cells; while dragging, the generated values will be displayed.

Step 5: Release the mouse pointer. Selected cells will be filled with series of values.

2. Generating series using command

Edit → Fill → Series Command is used to generate different set of series. Before using this feature, a set of cells should be selected. Using Fill Series feature, you can fill series of values at any direction. (Remember that, auto fill only fills either right or down). Refer Figure 7.31.

Direction : Down / Right / Up / Left (Selected cell direction will be default)

Series type :

Linear : To generate a sequence of series (Example 2,4,6,8,10…….)

Growth : To generate multiplication series (Example 2,4,8,16,32,64……)

Date : To generate date series (when you select date as series type; time unit section gets enabled)

AutoFill : To generate a continuous series of values (1,2,3,…….). When you select “AutoFill”, Time unit section, End value and Increment text boxes become disabled.

Time Unit: (Enabled only when you select the series type as “Date”

Day :  To generate date series day-wise

Weekday     :  To generate date series weekday-wise

Month         :         To generate date series month-wise

Year  :         To generate date series year-wise

Start Value:

Initial value of the series should be typed

End Value:

End value of the series should be typed

If you fail to specify the end value, series will be generated upto the selected cells.

If your selection is less than the specified end value, series will be generated only upto the selected cells.

Increment:

It is a middle value between the first and second value of your series. So, the next value (Third value) of the series will be generated based on this value.

If you want to generate a decreasing order series, negative value should be specified as an increment value. 

3. Date Arithmetic:

Manual date calculations can be tricky because you have to keep track of the number of days in a month. In spreadsheets, date calculations become very simple. Here you can add a number to a date and arrive at a new date, find the difference between two dates and use a wide variety of function and formats to get what you want.

For example, enter a date 02/26/2018 in a cell, say A2. Suppose you want to calculate the date 80 days after this date. To do so, enter the formula, = A2 + 80, in another cell, say A4.

The date 05/17/18 appears in the cell.

Find out how many days you were born?

·  Type today’s date in first cell.

·  Type your birth date in second cell.

·  Type the following formula in third cell = first_cell_reference – second_cell_ reference