Using QuickClear and QuickFill
QuickClear and QuickFill are handy shortcuts built into tables. Both employ the small “QuickFill handle” which you may have noticed at the lower right of each selected cell (or range of cells).
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QuickClear lets you instantly clear a range of cells whereas QuickFill (above) lets you create a standard sequence of numbers or entries, e.g. a number, letter, a month of the year, day of the week, or any arithmetic progression. You can also use QuickFill to replicate one cell’s contents over a range of cells.
To QuickClear a range of cells:
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Select the range to be cleared.
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Drag the QuickFill handle upward until no cells are specified.
To QuickFill a sequence of entries:
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Type the first entry of the sequence into the starting cell.
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Drag the selected cell’s QuickFill handle out to the range of cells to be quickfilled, as shown above. The function works both backwards and forwards!
If there are not enough items in the QuickFill sequence, the entries wrap back to the beginning value in the sequence.
To replicate a cell’s contents over a range of cells:
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Click to select the cell whose contents you want to replicate.
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Drag out the cell’s QuickFill handle over the range you want to fill.
The sequences that QuickFill knows about are:
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a, b, c, …
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A, B, C, … (we’ve used a starting letter “H” above)
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January, February, March, …
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JANUARY, FEBRUARY, MARCH, …
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january, february, march, …
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Jan, Feb, Mar, …
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JAN, FEB, MAR, …
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jan, feb, mar, …
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Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, …
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MONDAY, TUESDAY, WEDNESDAY, …
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monday, tuesday, wednesday, …
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Mon, Tue, Wed, …
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MON, TUE, WED, …
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mon, tue, wed, …
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Any arithmetic progression, that is, any series of numbers with a common difference.
For numerical sequences, if the starting selection contains two or more cells, QuickFill uses the difference between them as the common difference. For example, if the first two cells contain the numbers 10 and 20, then the ‘quickfilled’ sequence would be: 10, 20, 30, … If only a single number is specified, then the common difference between the numbers will be 1.
Similarly, for non-numerical sequences, you can specify a step between any entries, for example, enter “January” in the first cell, “March” in the second. QuickFill will place every other month in the sequence: “January, March, May, July, …”
You can type also phrases including known sequences, and QuickFill will fill the sequence, along with the other words. For example, type “Week 1″ and QuickFill would give you the sequence “Week 1, Week 2, Week 3, …” or “Jan Sales” would give: “Jan Sales, Feb Sales, Mar Sales, …”