Microsoft Excel's Auto Fill features help you quickly enter the same value in more than one cell or fill a series of cells with related or sequential values. You can type 'Acme Corporation' in one cell and let AutoComplete enter the entire name after you type 'A' in an adjacent cell. You can enter a date and drag the fill handle down the column to populate a month's worth of cells for a company status report, or type in two non-sequential product prices – $12 and $24, for example – and fill a row following the pattern you establish. When you don't need these convenience features, disable Auto Fill to avoid triggering them accidentally.
How to Add Autonumber in Excel. There are two different ways to add numbers to a column automatically. The most reliable way to automatically number rows in Excel is to use the ROW function.
Locate the Excel Option's dialog box Cut, Copy and Paste section. Uncheck the 'Show Paste Options Button When Content Is Pasted' option to turn off the Auto Fill Options button that appears when you drag the fill handle. With this option deactivated, you won't see the Auto Fill Options button that usually appears at the lower right corner of the last cell you fill. The button triggers a menu from which you can fine-tune the fill process so it picks up only the formatting or only the data values of the cell from which you started filling.
Excel does not have an autonumbering feature that increments a number each time you add a new row. However, you can use the Row function to add your own autonumbering function to a Data list. For example, say you are building a database of products whose product numbers extend from 100-001 through 100-200.
A portion of the worksheet for entering the product data is shown here: Instead of having to enter each product number individually, why not let Excel enter it for you each time you start a new row? Follow these steps to set up this worksheet for autonumbering: 1. Replace the contents of A2 with the formula: =TEXT(ROW(A1),'100-000') 2.
Copy the formula in cell A2 to A3. Select the range A1:C3.
Press the keys CRTL + t. In the Create Table dialog box, click OK. Your worksheet should look like this: Excel will automatically add the next product number to the list when you type the name of a product in the Product field and then press the TAB key. For example, when the product Peaches is entered into cell B4, Excel automatically enters the next product number 100-003, as shown: One problem with this method is that if you insert a row, the product number for the inserted row will be the same as the row below it, rather than incremented by 1. To correct this, use the autofill handle to copy the formula in the inserted cell to the one below. Excel will then automatically increment the product numbers accordingly. Deleting a row will result in a #REF error for the product number of the row below it.
![How To Autonumber In Excel For Mac How To Autonumber In Excel For Mac](/uploads/1/2/5/5/125500843/929180989.jpg)
Again, use the autofill handle of the cell above to copy its contents to the cell with the #REF error. Excel will then automatically increment the product numbers correctly for the remaining products.