MS Excel: How To Use Autofill In Microsoft Excel

How to speed up the Excel work with the autofill feature of Microsoft Excel

• First, Add some data to the very first cell of the worksheet.
• Drag the fill handle with the help of a mouse to fill the range of cells.
• When you drag the Fill handle the Excel cells are filled with either series values or repeating values with respect to the first cell or sequence of values.
• At the bottom right end of the selected box, an ‘Auto Fill’ option will appear. Click on that option to see more options related to the Autofill feature.
• Copy Cells: This will copy the first cell across the complete selected range.
• Fill Series: This option will fill the cell with a series of values with respect to the first cell.
• Fill Formatting Only: This option will fill the selected range with only formatting not values of the first cell.
• Fill Without Formatting: This option will fill the selected range with only values not formatting of the first cell.

Autofill Using More Than One Starting Cell Value

Excel worksheet also has amazing features like if you want to fill the cells with not only increment by 1, then it is also possible. You simply need to fill start two cells of the worksheet so that Excel can understand what pattern you want to fill to the selection.

Select both first cells and drag to the range of the cells to be filled. Excel will understand the pattern from the initial 2 cells of the worksheet and will fill the rest of the cells with the same pattern.

Using this pattern you can fill cells with increments or decrements with any number gap or any alternate values too. The only thing to follow is that just write the pattern in the initial 2 cells and drag both cells to the range of the cell.

Autofill Dates And Times

Excel worksheet can also be auto-filled with Date and Times. You have to follow the same procedure for the date and time autofill. Just type the normal format of the date in the first cell and drag the fill handle to the bottom.

Date will be dragged down by adding one day to the previous date and the same will happen to the Time, time will increase by One hour.

Here, also you have that ‘Auto Fill Option’ box at the bottom right of the selection. Just click on that option and select the suitable option according to your requirement (i.e. Copy Cells, Fill Days, Fill Months, Fill Years, etc.)

• Fill Days: Used to fill the day in the selected cell.
• Fill Weekdays: Used to fill the Weekdays (except Sunday and Saturday) in the selected cell.
• Fill Moths: Used to fill the months in the selected cell.
• Fill Years: Used to fill the years in the selected cell.

Autofill Text Values

Excel Autofill feature will fill selected columns with repeating text values with respect to the first cell. Some of the text values Excel recognizes as a series part. Refer to the below image.

Autofill Functions and Formulas

Excel also provide an Autofill feature to work with formula and functions but there is no series fill option available. By using simply this method formula gets copied to another cell.

Horizontal and Vertical Autofill

Excel Autofill feature also works horizontally as we did before for down the bottom. Simply keep and drag the Fill handle to the cells where you want to copy the data.

Autofill Multiple Rows or Columns Simultaneously

MS Excel Autofill feature also worked for more than one column or row. The pattern or procedure of the process will remain the same. If you need any other reference then go through the below image for simple understanding.

Double Click on the Fill Handle

Excel Autofill will work with double click like if you want to autofill a column using double click on the fill handle option at the bottom right of the selection.

For speed, you can Autofill a column by double-clicking on the fill handle of a highlighted cell (or range of cells). If the cells below or adjacent to the highlighted cell (or range) contain values, double-clicking the fill handle causes the Autofill to fill down the current column until it reaches the end of the current data range.