As you probably already know, Excel’s AutoFill feature can come in handy when you need to fill rows or columns of cells with incrementally changing values. All that you have to do is enter a value in one cell, and then enter another value in an adjacent cell that is greater or smaller than the first value by some increment. Once you do this, you can fill the rest of the row or column by selecting the two staring cells, and dragging your mouse pointer.

 

Excel lets you go one step further than this, by allowing you to create your own custom AutoFill lists.

 

To do this, choose Tools->Options from the menu bar, and click on the custom lists tab in the options dialogue box.

 

Under the Custom Lists tab, you can enter into the List entries box, a series of words, abbreviations, or numbers, pressing Enter after each term you type. When you click the Add button, the custom list will be added to the Custom lists box on the left.

 

Alternatively, you can place your cursor in the Import text field, and select a range of cells containing the new list entries with your mouse. When you have made your selection, just click the Import button to add the values to your custom lists.

This method requires that the selected cells contain text entries.

 

This is a great way to create a custom AutoFill list from existing headings or labels in your worksheet.

 

Once you have finished creating your custom lists, click the OK button to close the dialogue box. Now, if you type the first word or abbreviation from one of your custom lists in a cell, you can drag your mouse pointer to AutoFill adjacent cells along a row or column with the rest of your list items. When you drag past the last item in your list, the items will start to repeat at the beginning of the list. This behaviour is identical to the way AutoFill works with Excel’s preset lists.