In the new Numbers, where did autofill drop down menus go and how do I get them back?

The Autocompletion List went away in Numbers 3.0. To get it back, use Numbers 2.3.

Jerry

But there's autocompletion to the whole dictionary! Type jerr in a cell and hit option-escape.

Not sure how this could help with spreadsheet work, but just thought I'd point out that it's there.🙂

If they brought back spacebar to activate pop-up that would be a tolerable substitute for me because pop-up is a very efficient way to do things in iOS.

SG

Hi Mark,

Autofill by dragging the yellow dot (doesn't show in this screen shot, hover until you see it).

Regards,

Ian.

Wow, that could be overwhelming. The nice thing about the Autocompletion list is that it was limited to what was in the same column.

Jerry

Yes, I know what you mean. But just so you know it's there and has all sorts of words in its dictionary. Doesn't seem to be a way to limit the words it looks up to a useful subset. Would probably have to mess around in the application package or the Library...

SG

I have a Numbers spreadsheet that I've used every day for years with thousands of entries. For most of the new entries, only one or two variables change in each new row, while the rest of the cells in the row contain previously entered information (eg. category information such as "Food"). Now, with the 3.0 upgrade, I will have to enter in full each cell of the entire entry, instead of typing one letter and having the program fill in the remainder of the cell for me. The removal of "autocompletion" is significant, and negatively affects my use of the software. Although the suggestion to revert to version 2.3 no doubt is an option, I think that one version of any software package should be enough for any user.

Tell Apple at Numbers > Provide Numbers Feedback.

Jerry

Hi Jammy0,

Try this. Two tables in Numbers 3.0

In the Enter table, type the first letter of your item in any cell in column A.

It will search in the Lookup table for a match and return the value from the Lookup table, Column B.

Formula in cell B2 of the Enter table is:

=VLOOKUP(A2,Lookup::A:B,2,0)

Then Fill Down in column B of Enter table.

Good enough to work around the loss of autocompletion?

Regards,

Ian.

And, although unfortunately there's no keyboard shortcut for it yet (big oversight!), using a pop-up can work well to input category names you don't want to type each time. Looking at this on the bright side, it keeps your data cleaner. Less chance of typos creeping in.

SG

yeah - this was a huge issue for me this morning - like "i need autofill" panic

this new app is a different app - its not an update of iwork09

so you can (i just did this - so it worked for me) - export from the new numbers -> to a numbers 09 file - then highlight the new file / command+i to get the info pallet on the file... then change "open with" to the old number app... then it will open in 09 and you get your autofill back

-e

apple always tell you "whats new" with the new apps

after this - and the lack of "Labels" in Mavericks - i think apple needs to start telling us "whats missing" - because THATS more important to people that use these machines for work

After trying to figure this out for an hour or so this morning, I came across something somewhat helpful - not as good as what we had, but still...

Click on your column header and then go over to the tool palette in the right and click on "cell." You can then use the drop down menu to change data format to "pop up menu." It isn't a full-on autocomplete, but it will give you a pop-up menu to choose from the other values in the column. For what I need it for, this is far more usable than typing in everything, as I only need to choose from 15-20 different values. Anyway, hopefully that helps a bit.

Hi Smirhcfa,

I find pop-ups useful too. They're good for situations when you have a few recurring values that you enter in different rows in the same column. For me they are even better than auto-completion in the sense that typing errors are less likely to creep in by mistake. Pop-ups work really well on a touch interface (iPad, iPhone) where the less typing you do (even the first letter of a word) the better. On the Mac the desigers failed to include a keyboard shortcut for pop-ups in 3.0 (in the old Numbers you can call up the pop-up by hitting the space bar.) I hope you give them feedback if you're interested in them adding that:

SG

I have solved this by editing text preferences under Edit>substitutions. Not ideal as it affects all apps.