Excel's AutoFill facility relies on the program's ability to recognize patterns in the values that you enter. For example, say you type "Week 1" in a cell; you can have the program automatically enter "Week 2", "Week 3", etc. by dragging the AutoFill handle. This is situated in the bottom right of the cell. When the cursor moves over it, the cursor changes appearance to a plus sign (+). At this point you simply click, hold, drag in any direction and Excel will pick up the pattern and reproduce it to create automatic data entries.



Each time you use the AutoFill handle Excel displays the AutoFill Options drop down menu just below the last cell which has been automatically created. If the program has not entered the data you wanted it to, just choose one of the entries in the AutoFill Options to tell it what you wanted it to do. For example, if you choose Copy Cells, Excel will generate an exact copy of what was in the original cell.

Excel also has the ability to automatically enter arbitrary series of data using a feature called Custom Lists. Certain lists are built into Excel, for example, the months of the year. To use the AutoFill feature, enter the first value in the list, for example, "Jan" or "January". Next drag the AutoFill handle (located in the bottom right of the active cell) in any direction to automatically enter the rest of the custom list.

As well as these built-in lists, Excel allows you to create your own custom lists. For example, suppose you work for a company that has branches in several towns. It's a safe bet that you'll need to list these towns quite frequently in your spreadsheets. You could therefore save yourself considerable time by setting up the towns as a custom list.

Creating a custom list is really easy. First, select the cells in one of your worksheets that contain the necessary information. Second, click on the Office button and choose Excel options. Third, click on "Edit Custom Lists" in the "Popular" category. Excel displays the entries that were in the cells that we highlighted. Finally, to convert the selected data into a custom list, click on the "Import" button.

Having created a custom list, you can use it in any of your worksheets, not just the one that contained the original information. To conjure up the entries in the list, simply enter the first value. Next, drag the AutoFill handle and Excel will generate the remaining entries. When you use this facility, you are able to drag in any direction and you don't have to start with the first entry in the custom list.

Custom lists can also be entered directly in the "Custom Lists" dialog box. To do this, click on the "List Entries" button and type the list separating entries with a carriage return. After entering the list, click on the Add button to make it permanent.

To delete a custom list, simply click on it and click on the "Delete" button. Excel verifies that you want to delete the list and when you click "OK", the list is gone.