Knowledge Base

XL98: AutoFill Is Limited to 255 Characters

Article ID: 182996

Article Last Modified on 9/11/2002

Microsoft Excel 98 for Macintosh

This article was previously published under Q182996

SYMPTOMS

When you use the AutoFill feature to fill a series in a range of cells, the AutoFill feature may not increment each series value in each of the filled cells.

CAUSE

This behavior occurs if you either use the fill handle to fill a cell value down (or across) a range of cells or if you point to Fill on the Edit menu and then click Series.

In Microsoft Excel 98, you can enter 32,767 characters into a cell; however, the AutoFill feature does not work for cells that contain more than 255 characters. Instead of detecting and filling the values for the series, Microsoft Excel copies the values.

STATUS

This behavior is by design of Microsoft Excel 98 Macintosh Edition.

MORE INFORMATION

You can copy that cell to other cells in the same row or column by dragging the fill handle of a cell. If the cell contains a number, date, or time period that Microsoft Excel can extend in a series, the values are incremented. For example, if you enter Qtr1 in cell A1, and you fill this down to cell A4, Excel fills the following values:

A1: Qtr1
A2: Qtr2
A3: Qtr3
A4: Qtr4

REFERENCES

For more information about AutoFill, click Contents And Index on the Help menu (or on the Balloon Help menu if you are using a version of the Macintosh operating system earlier than 8.0), click the Index button in Microsoft Excel Help, type the following text

AutoFill

and then click Show Topics. Select the "Automatically fill in data based on adjacent cells" topic, and click Go To. If you are unable to find the information you need, ask the Office Assistant.

Additional query words: auto fill XL98

Keywords: kbualink97 kbprb KB182996