I use the auto-fill handle very often; both dragging and double-clicking. I need it, so I don't want to disable it in the options. However, I have certain situations where I'm just trying to copy down values to the next cells, and it appears Excel is using some type of memory/cache to auto-fill them with crazy values. I recognize the values; but there is no rhyme or reason as to why it's auto-filling them at this moment in time.
Example: There are no formulas in any of these cells and this is just a brand new sheet in Excel. I want to grab handle of cell B10 and copy it down to B14:
Now, I wish I could record a little clip of me copying this down so you can see it change the values live, but I promise you, this is what the values get changed to, and it has no relation to the values above it in the same column or anywhere in this sheet and there are zero formulas anywhere; just a simple table being populated:
What can I do to get this to copy the correct values? This has created errors in other tables where I didn't catch it populating the cells incorrectly in time.
My colleague has been suffering this exact problem and his solution is detailed below:
Go into Advanced Options and under General click on Edit Custom Lists button and you should find your values listed there. If so, you can delete them from this list and the problem should go away
Good luck!
Related
I am struggling with the autocomplete list in my excel document.
I was trying to use the example from OzGrid
https://www.ozgrid.com/Excel/autocomplete-validation.htm
But it seems like this step is not explained well enough.
First of all, I did step one by linking my cells between these 2 sheets.
[![enter image description here][1]][1]
In both "Frontsheet" and "Locality" the list range is from C51 to C67, as per the OzGrid advice.
Next the step with [Dynamic Ranges][2] probably refers to older versions of Excel with traditional menu, where we could select the "Tools" from the bar. Now in Excel 2016 I believe, that it should be like follows:
Formulas - Name manager - New... where we put our name, scope and refers to (range). I have created the Myrange
[![enter image description here][3]][3]
and finally, I put the formula (assuming that the C50 is my dropdown list cell):
=OFFSET(Frontsheet!$C$50,0,0,MATCH("*",Frontsheet!$C$51:$C$67,-1),1)
but I am getting nothing apart of #N/A
I don't know what's next.
I don't want to use VBA this time, because I want to have these lists allocated to the specified cells. I want to search the records by typing not by selecting since I have got them quite a lot. Is it possible?
This question is somewhat a duplicate to the previous ones, which unfortunately didn't bring me the solution.
Excel 2010: how to use autocomplete in validation list
Excel data validation with suggestions/autocomplete
Your formula =OFFSET(Frontsheet!$C$50,0,0,MATCH("*",Frontsheet!$C$51:$C$67,-1),1) shouldn't return anything but #N/A when entered in a cell because it defiens a range which Excel can't display in a single cell. However, you can use it to define a named range and then use that name to define a Data Validation list.
MATCH("*",Frontsheet!$C$51:$C$67,-1) doesn't work reliably if there are numbers in the lookup range. You might replace it with COUNTA(Frontsheet!$C$51:$C$67) which can deal with numbers or text equally well. The difference is that MATCH will produce the entire list, including intervening blanks, while COUNTA will truncate the list at the bottom by as many rows as there are blanks higher up. Either way, one usually avoids blanks in the source for a validation list.
If you want the user to be able to either choose or enter, you must disable Show alert after invalid data is entered on the Error Alert tab of the Data Validation dialog box, where you set up the validation rules.
The OzGrid solution is poorly written and deceptive. It is simply capitalizing on AutoComplete for cell values. There is no magic in linking to another sheet and using offset or in creating a named reference.
All you need to do is add a list of values you intend to use in the column above the column. Avoid empty rows between this list of 'default' values and what you intend to enter.
Skipped rows 'break' AutoComplete for cells.
But can be resolved by adding an adjacent contiguous 'indexing' column.
I'm fairly new to excel but have been learning lots. Please go easy on me.
Have 30,000 pieces of data, and constantly filtering this data set. As such, all my formulas constantly need to be updated to the new range (for example, a filter may change my range from B7000:B9000 from B1:B30000). I was able to make it so I can retrieve the row numbers for the first and last visible column.
I was hoping to be able to reference this within my cells to expand my range. What I tried (just as an example),
=INDEX(Helper!D3:Helper!E3),MATCH... (rest of the formula is correct)
In the Helper Spreadsheets for D3 I have
=Concatenate("'Sheet 1'!U"&D2)
Where, D2 is the formula I have used to grab my first visible row. In this case my D2 displays 7000
Is this doable or am I totally approaching this wrong? I've seemed to hit a brick wall and I can't figure out how to get this to work. Thanks again.
EDIT:
I am trying to use index and match on a range of cells to populate a fairly large table. Problem is range keeps changing every time I filter data. So I have 30 iterations of this data I need to get through in an already fairly complex algorithm i'm running. I was hoping to save a few steps by having my formulas auto expand depending on the filter, which would save me lots of headache as right now I have to go through and edit each formula by hand to the range the filter sets.
I thought I had it figured out by getting a way to grab the 1st and last visible column, however now I can't enter those into a reference as a formula for example as in the case above.
I've been struggling with this longer than I care to admit, but I have a fairly simple OFFSET function call which works on one sheet, but if I copy it to a different sheet it gives a #VALUE error.
On a sheet named "Deliverable" I have this formula in a cell:
=OFFSET(Deliverable!$B$72,1,0,,3)
and it works fine.
If I go to any other sheet and use the same exact formula, or use it in the Name Manager, it gives a #VALUE error.
If I leave off the final parameter indicated the number of columns I want, it does work:
=OFFSET(Deliverable!$B$72,1,0)
but of course isn't giving me the range I need.
Any idea what's going on with this?
I'm using Excel 2016 on Windows 7.
-- Updated Info --
In a nutshell, my spreadsheet has two cells which I'm using as dropdown lists, where the 2nd cell's list feeds off the selection in the first. The data they are based on has this format:
OptionA A B C D
OptionB A B
OptionC D E F
So the first dropdown uses a simple Data Validation source pointing to the column with OptionA, OptionB, etc. Once that's chosen, the second dropdown list should contain the appropriate options for the one selected. So if OptionB is selected, then the 2nd dropdown list should show A and B.
When I initially wrote this, the data validation source was just a simple VLOOKUP entry, but the lists often had blanks since the number of options varies for each entry. Wanting to fix it up a bit, I ended up with this formula:
=OFFSET(Deliverable!B72,Deliverable!B87,0,1,COUNTA(OFFSET(Deliverable!B72,Deliverable!B87,0,1,5)))
There won't be any more than 5 options, and there are no empty cells in the middle of the data to filter out.
In one spreadsheet I have I used this as a named range definition, then specified the named range for the cells data validation source and it worked. In this other spreadsheet however, it gave me the error described earlier.
However, it looks like when I enter the statement directly into the data validation source field and not in the name manager, it works as expected.
Am I taking the totally wrong approach?
What is it that you want this formula to do? As written, it is returning a block of three horizontal cells. The #VALUE error is Excel's way of telling you "Hey, you're trying to return three cells, but I can't fit them all in the one cell that you are calling this formula from".
The reason you see a result in some places and not others is because of something called Implicit Intersection. Give it a spin on Google. But basically, it just returns whichever one of those three results corresponds to the column that the formula is entered into. If you copy that exact same formula to say row F you will see that it returns a #VALUE error there, because it doesn't know what cell it should return given the column you're calling it from doesn't match any of the cells it is returning. The fact that you don't know this indicates that the formula you're using doesn't in fact do what you think it does.
--UPDATE --
Okay, following your further clarificaiton it seems that you're talking about Cascading Dropdowns aka Dynamic Dropdowns. Lots of info on Google about how to set these up, but you may be interested in an approach I blogged about sometime back that not only provides this functionality, but also ensures that someone can't later on go and change the 'upstream' dropdown without first clearing the 'downstream' one should they want to make a change.
Note that those links talk about a slightly complicated method compared to others, but the method has it's advantages in that it also handles more levels than two, and your DV lists are easily maintained as they live in an Excel Table.
This sounds like an array equation. Try hitting Ctrl+Shift+Enter in the other sheets to validate it as an array equation.
Whenever you need to reference ranges instead of single cells, Excel needs to know that you are working with arrays.
I am making a payroll program in Excel and one of my concerns is that the salaries of the employees are searched using the INDEX and MATCH or VLOOKUP function. The problem is if the salaries get updated in the future (e.g. a raise or changes in rates), all the previous entries that used the old salaries will be updated to the new salaries. This is a disaster and would make my entire program useless and inefficient. Therefore I need to automatically lock previous calculated cells after a certain time.
Edit: Note we do not want to do this manually such as copy pasting values only because almost all cells are connected to each other and one mistake by the encoder or if they forget to do this before updating a value, everything will be messed up.
No! Not copying and pasting, there's a simpler way. You want to convert the Formula property of a given cell (what's shown in the formula bar in Excel) into the Value property of the cell (what's shown in the cell on the spreadsheet). For a given range A1:B6 this would done by the statement
Range("A1:B6").formula = Range("A1:B6").value
But there's a quirk in Excel that you can run faster by accessing a Value2 property, so
Range("A1:B6").formula = Range("A1:B6").value2
The rest of the code is left as an exercise for the reader :-)
I've been sending spreadsheets to a client that often contain live formulas (probably my first mistake). For some reason, when she tries filtering the data, the formulas get completely wonky and I end up redoing everything.
Case in point:
This formula should have B4="Yes" and A4 in the SUMIF. Instead, after the filter, A18 appeared which references the wrong ID (which used to be in B4 prior to the filter).
=IF(B4="Yes","",IF(SUMIF('Rawdata'!D19:D617,A18,'Rawdata'!R19:S617)=0,"No","Yes"))
Any ideas on why this is the case? And how to fix this?
Thanks
Kelley, you're going to have to copy the entire table and paste values to send to the client. The reference points in the formulas change as the table is filtered according to the filtering. Making the entire table values only will also decrease the file size (added bonus).
My suggestion would be to send the client one tab with the live formulas if they want to see how you derived your results, and one 'formalized' tab with values pasted for further data analysis and manipulation by the client.
Let me know how this works for you.