Excel Question about autofill

[Vinman]

I've got an Excel handicapping spreadsheet that I made from scratch and want to include the jockeys' names on each horizontal line along with the speed figures and other info I insert manually for each horse. Naturally I want to include the Jockey names without having to type each name in full each time. When I first began typing in the names last night, the autofill feature kicked in and soon all I had to do was type in the letter "D" and "Dominguez" would autofill, as would the other jockeys' names. Then later it got to a point where it would no longer autofill the names and I then had to type each one in full.

I have each race separated by 3 lines of headers, which I wonder might be the cause of the autofill not working from top to bottom, even thought its all the same vertical column.

Is there a way I can get the autofill feature to complete the jock names in the same column from top to bottom, regardless of headers, by typing in one or two characters, as I was doing when I first started? Now it will only autofill the same names within the same race area between the headers. If I go below the headers and into the rows for the next race and type in a Jockey's name I've already typed in above in that column, the autofill won't work.

I checked and the autofill feature is on. Is there a limit to the number of words or names it will autofill before it "forgets" all of them?

Any help would be appreciated.


Vinman

[Delta Cone]

You are technically using autocomplete, not autofill. Autofill in Excel is where you can enter 1 in a cell, then grab the corner and expand it down, it will automatically fill with 2,3,4,5, etc.

I suspect that the headers every few rows in your sheet are causing autocomplete to fail. You may want to look into the Data Validation features of Excel.

Here is a link you may find helpful:

http://www.ozgrid.com/Excel/autocomplete-validation.htm

[Vinman]

Thanks. Found it.

I'm first going to re-sort the sheet to get rid of the headers while I'm entering the Jockey names. Hopefully that will enable the autocomplete feature to work. I can then re-sort the race headers back in to their proper slots when done with the names.

Vinman

[Tom]

If you put your cursor in the column with the jockey's names in it, above the header rows, and then down-arrow past them, it should work again.
I have this all the time in sheets I do at work. I think you just have to give the program a point of reference where you want to autocomplete from.