Home > Tips and Tutorials > June 2003

Tip of the Month - June 2003

| Tip of the Month Archive |

Quickly Repeating a Formula in Excel

Sometimes you want to enter the same formula across several rows in an Excel spreadsheet. One way to accomplish this is to enter the formula in the first cell and then “drag” the formula across the cells using the fill handle. (The fill handle is the small black square in lower right-hand corner of the cell. Find the fill handle by pointing the mouse in the lower right-hand corner until it changes to a small black cross.)

Repeatedly dragging the fill handle can be tedious, especially with several hundred or thousand rows of data. Furthermore, it’s difficult to control the drag so that it stops at the final row of data. Fortunately, there’s an easier way in Excel. Instead of dragging the formula across the rows, just double click on the fill handle. Excel will automatically copy, paste, and calculate the formula down the column as long as cells in the adjacent column contain data.

Note: This has been tested with Microsoft Excel 97 and above.