Q: text is not repeating

can you be more specific as to what you mean by "Its not repeating itself"? If you use the fill handles it will repeat fine copying the data from the row above as far as i know. Or are you talking about the auto fill funcitonality that recommends words already typed in previously in the column?

Jason

The auto complete feature was dropped when Apple released the new version.  You may provide feedback using the menu item "Numbers > Provide Numbers Feedback" AND you may continue to use the previous version which is located in the folder "/Applications/iWork '09"

Hi marcholechti

Apple now calls this "auto-complete of text in cells."  They've already announced it will be added back in upcoming releases over the next six months.

Meanwhile, if you want to continue using the new Numbers, its Pop-Up Menu format can be even better than auto-complete for certain tasks where you are reentering a relatively small number of repeating values and don't want to have to type them each time:

If you frequently enter repeating values in a column you could consider formating the cells as Pop-Up Menu:

If you've selected the whole column before formatting as Pop-Up Menu, your existing values in that column will pre-populate a menu automatically:

Then you remove the values you don't want in the menu, such as the column header (and quite possibly some previous spelling and capitalization inconsistencies too!):

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

That's all there is to it!

There's no keyboard shortcut to activate the menu such as they had in the old Numbers (I hope they'll add one) but the Pop-Up Menu approach has some advantages over autocompletion: no spelling inconsistencies or lack of capitalization when there should be capitalization, etc.

And should you ever want to take your Numbers with you, in a touch interface pop-ups are more efficient than activating a virtual keyboard and tapping the first few letters of items.

See the workarounds thread  for this and other tips on working with Numbers 3.0.

SG

If i remember correctly, the highlight the column and it autopopulates teh pop up fields is new to 3.0, am i correct? Its been on the ipad that way for a while and i remember it not working in the old Numbers when i tried it. Nice to see ipad neat feature moving to desktop.

Jason

Jason,

I didn't use pop-ups much in 2.3 but just tried it and I think you're right; the autopopulation does appear to be an improvement introduced in 3.0 inspired by the iOS version. Pop-Up Menus are a real natural for the touch interface and I like them on the Mac too. They do need to add the old spacebar (or some other keyboard) trigger, though.

SG

I'm sorry I my answer I wrote: "he/she".

I apologize, please forgive me. In my mind it was for SG III.

Ah, I was wondering about that he/she business. SGIII hadn't considered the possibility he/she might be thought to be a hermaphrodite.

SG