How to autofill cells with Numbers spreadsheet

By PaulMartz, 21 March, 2020

Forum

macOS and Mac Apps

Does anyone know how to autofill cells using VoiceOver with Numbers?

Visually, I understand there's a small control handle at the bottom of a group of selected cells. A sighted user can mouse down on that control, drag, and release, and the new cells are automatically filled based on the existing contents. I'd like to know how to accomplish that with VoiceOver.

Thanks.

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Comments

Re: Auto Fill in Numbers

If you're talking about filling across or down to have the cells display the active data, as in the result to a formula, simply highlight the cells with shift and the arrow keys and paste the values. Numbers is smart enough to know you're filling these cells with active data and will do this automatically. Example: You want to sum columns in the last row of your table.

Move to the cell where your sum will go.
Insert>Formula>Sum or calculate by hand using SUM(B2:Bx) where B is substituted for the column you're working in.
Copy the result of the formula.
Highlight the other cells in the row at the bottom of each column where you want this formula to be active.
Paste.

Hope this helps.

Thanks

That's good to know for formulae, but what if I wanted a column of sequential dates? A sighted person could enter the first two dates in the top cells of the column, then mouse-drag down, and the subsequent dates in the sequence would be generated automatically.

Re: Auto Fill in Numbers

If you want to increment a date, as in March 1, March 2, March 3… down a column, do this;

Enter the first date into the first cell.
Enter the Formatter pane with VO-J. Select "Cell".
Interact with the Cell Formatter.
Change the data type to from Automatic to Date and Time.
Select None from the Time combo box.
Return to the table area.
Copy the date in the cell which now has a formula in it.
Highlight cells below and paste.

Nice trick

Very cool, thanks!