Excel Help

April 25, 2004 11:49 AM

Using Excel 2001 for Mac, is there any way to set up a column that can autocomplete using data from another column? If not, is there something that can handle this sort of thing?
posted by the biscuit man to computers & internet (6 comments total)

I think you'll need to give more detail here.
posted by bingo at 11:50 AM on April 25, 2004

I don't think you can control any aspect of autocomplete. You can, however, get close to the effect you describe using data validation dropdowns.
posted by jjg at 12:23 PM on April 25, 2004

The worst kind of askme answer ever, but here's how you do it in Excel for Windows (Office 2003):

Go to Tools > Options.

Choose the "Custom Lists" tab.

Use "Import List from Cells" and select the range of cells you want to be your autocomplete list, then ADD.
posted by contessa at 1:26 PM on April 25, 2004

Custom Lists are for controlling sort order. They don't have any effect on autocomplete (on the Mac, at least).
posted by jjg at 1:36 PM on April 25, 2004

Is your data in the other column dynamic? If not, why not just copy it to the top of your desired column and let autocomplete work the way it wants to, then delete the copied cells?
posted by ulotrichous at 3:17 PM on April 25, 2004

Sorry, I've been busy and have not been able to reply.

A better explanation. I'm using Excel, which works rather quickly for this type of thing, to build an index of coupons. The first column is the page number it appears on, the second is the business name and the third is the heading. The heading column consists of about 110 different items. I tried moving the list for autocomplete, to the bottom of the list, but after about 250 rows it does not seem to reference the list at the bottom. I also could use FileMaker Pro, but I could not find a way to autocomplete.

Thanks everyone!
posted by the biscuit man at 7:25 PM on April 25, 2004