Q: Numbers autofill?

Autofill was dropped in the Numbers 3.0.

Here is a list if item Apple is addressing over the next few months:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT6049

You can continue to use Numbers 2.3 which is located in the folder "/Applications/iWork '09" if this feature is essential to your work flow.

Apple will reintroduce "auto-complete text in cells" sometime in the next few months.  But even after it is brought back you might want to consider formatting the cells in the column as Pop-Up Menu if you frequently enter repeating values in a column and don't want to type the same text over and over again.

In many situations, particularly if you want to avoid typos creeping in and messing up your data, Pop-Up Menu has clear advantages over "autocomplete." It 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.

In Numbers 3.0 there is no keyboard shortcut to activate the menu such as hitting the spacebar in the old Numbers (hope they'll add one in upcoming versions) but the Pop-Up Menu approach, unlike auto-complete, eliminates spelling inconsistencies or lack of capitalization when there should be capitalization, etc.

And 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.

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

SG

As you can see from the previous link Apple will be addressing this shortcoming

Hi Wayne,

With the enhanced Pop-Up and increased cross-platform use, the lack of auto-complete does not seem to be as much of a "shortcoming" as it's portrayed to be here (though I will welcome its reintroduction).

Auto-complete is much less efficient on a touch interface, so anybody using Numbers cross-platform should heavily favor Pop-Up so they can use their documents efficiently for data input on the go, which can be a big productivity booster.

Also, auto-complete is not a good choice even on the Mac if you've got numerous hard-to-spell values, particularly if some are capitalized and some not, where the capitalization can be significant. In Numbers 2 it seems you have to choose between not correcting the capitization or capitalizing everything even when you might not want something capitalized. A recipe for error.

Since Numbers does not have data input validation to speak of, Pop-Up is a particularly useful feature. And with Numbers 3 it's now well implemented (though we do need keyboard activation such as Numbers 2 had).

SG

Hi SG,

You know I am a fan of pop-ups. My 200+ herb pop-up is treating me right. On my wish list is a way to add to a pop-up menu on the fly and alphabetize it. One can dream.

Quinn

On my wish list is a way to add to a pop-up menu on the fly and alphabetize it. One can dream.

Glad to hear the herb Pop-Up has stood the test of time! I was surprised how efficient a big menu can be.

This is not quite "on the fly," but here's a quick way to alphabetize a Pop-Up Menu that's "evolved" with use and become a little messy.

1. Sort Ascending on the column containing the cells formatted as Pop-Up Menu.
2. Select the cells in the column and reformat as Text.
3. Then, with the cells still selected, reformat as Pop-Up Menu.

Your Pop-Up Menu is now alphabetized.

(The last 2 steps are, of course, also a way to create a new Pop-Up Menu on the fly.)

(If you need to get back to your original order that isn't according to some sort on other columns, you could first add an Original Order column with 1,2,3 filled down, then sort on that when you're finished.)

SG

SG,

I think your method works well if every item is represented in the column. Or if you want to purge items that haven't been used. What I am going to try is to have a list (in this case "Patients") that I will add to and alphabetize as needed. I will select this list and reformat as Pop-Up then copy and paste the Pop-Up to my entry sheet. If I don't need to do this every week it should not be too onerous.

Quinn

What seems to work best here is this. It's not too onerous.

Edit: Had an idea that on second try doesn't work well. Back to the drawing board.

SG

I would have found "Merge Menu Items" eventually but who knows when. I will use this. Thanks.

On iOS Numbers all you have to do is select both Pop-Ups and they merge. Not sure if trouble lurks in that.

I am responding to a ghost post. It seemed to work for me.

Q