Q: Is there still autofill in the new Numbers?

Hi janclerinx,

Apple has said that "auto-complete" will be added back in upcoming releases over the next few months. However, I recommend having a look at an enhanced feature in Numbers 3 that is even better in many situations.

If you frequently enter repeating values in a column and don't want to type the same text over and over again, note that Numbers 3 has an enhanced Pop-Up Menu functionality. This can be a better choice than "auto-complete" since it helps prevent typos or capitalization inconsistencies from creeping in and messing up your data. It is also much more efficient than auto-complete in Numbers for iOS, should you ever want to sync to an iPad or iPhone and do data entry there.

Pop-Up Menu is much enhanced over what it was in Numbers 2.3, and is easy to set up:

Select the whole column or range before formatting as Pop-Up Menu and your existing values in that column or range will pre-populate a menu automatically:

Then you can remove the values you don't want in the list, such as the column header (and possibly some previous spelling errors too!):

And after this easy one-time setup all you have to do thereafter is to choose from the pop-up list when you add rows:

See this post for more details on how this handy feature has been enhanced in Numbers 3.0.

Should you ever want to take your Numbers with you and do data entry on an iPad or iPhone, in a touch interface, pop-ups are much more efficient than typing the first few letters of items. You can scroll with ease through a list of dozens of items to make a pick. Anybody using Numbers cross-platform should favor Pop-Up so they can use their documents efficiently for data input on the go, which can be a productivity booster.

See this thread for this and other workarounds for Numbers 3.0.

SG

Hi Jan,

It creates an lot of extra work having to type everything and then making sure it is exactly the same as previous entries

That is where Pop-Up Menus save typing (and typing errors).

The problem with the pop-up menu is that it doesn't seem to alphabetize

Creating a Pop-Up Menu in Numbers 3 is much easier than it was in Numbers 2. First, create a list of items in alphabetical order. Select them all and Format Panel > Cell > Data Format > Pop-Up Menu. The items are automatically added in the order of the selected cells.

During or *after* creating your pop-ups, you can easily add new items (plus button), delete categories (minus button), or change the order by dragging items in Format Panel. Here is a shot after I dragged Zulu up the list:

Hint: I find it useful to include a blank choice (Start with Blank) so I can cancel a previous entry in a cell.

Regards,

Ian.

I sit here giggling like a 12 year old at the amazing tip and its usefullness over auto-complete.

I use Numbers to keep a history of medication purchases and now pop-up makes filling out Doc's name, medication name, DIN and 'script numbers so darn easy!

Many thanks to SGIII and Yellowstone. You've saved me from retyping the same info each time.

Hi FrankMtl,

Great to hear you've found Pop-Up useful.

SG