Excel Date Autofill problems

Question

Hi all :)

I have a problem with autofilling dates in Excel (Office 365). It is not possible to autofill dates. This is the same for days, months or years. I do not even come to point to choose what to autofill ( drag down while holding right-click).

My cells are in the right format for my region. I can change them to short or long format without a problem but the autofill won't work.

For your information my display language (Windows + Excel) is english. Region settings for Germany.

Maybe someone had the same issue or can help me.

Best regards

Answer 1

Of course I checked this with more than one given cell.

I tried the same with numbers in general (Tried to fill 1 to 10 with the first three cells given) and the same problem appeared. Excel just autofills with copies. (123123...)

Answer 2

I don't know what you are doing differently.  There is a fundamental communication breakdown.

Did you read those articles?

type 1 in cell a1

type 2 in cell a2

type 3 in cell a3

select from a1:a3

there is a little square "handle in the bottom right of the selection, click and drag it

autofill continues the sequence

works the same for dates

It also works in 2010, so version is not an issue.

I can't imagine what you are doing differently.

Answer 3

Yes sorry, this is probably because of my bad English skills. I read the articles but they I don't get new information out of them. I worked with excel and other similar programs (libre-, open office) before that's why I am so confused that this basic skill does not work as I think it should do.

Maybe this picture can help: I tried to autfill the sequence from 1 to 10 starting with 3 cells on the left side. On the right side I tried to autofill the dates (already formatted in short form) while holding right-click to get into the autofill "menu". You can see what I tried to describe in post above. I can't choose how to increment steps in the sequence.

It only copies the first steps and builds the sequence out of it.

Answer 4

In your first example,you see the little icon at the bottom right corner, that is the fill options pop up

The way your machine is working, it appears your option is set to "COPY CELLS" rather than fill series. 

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/fill-data-automatically-in-worksheet-cells-74e31bdd-d993-45da-aa82-35a236c5b5db

The strange part is, I can't get the option to display, instead I get this pop up:

which gives a different set of options

Answer 5

I posted another question trying to figure out why we see different options. There I've been given the suggestion that you start Excel in Safe Mode to see if that helps at all with your problem.

.

Shortcut to Start Word in Safe Mode or Excel in Safe Mode, Hold <CTL> key when clicking on icon or using the Start menu search window and entering WINWORD.EXE /a  or  WINWORD.EXE /safe  Don’t Assume ANYTHING!

.

Don’t assume some part of the trouble shooting processes listed below doesn’t apply to you. Often there are things going on in the background that you just aren’t aware of. For example, when installing software it is all too easy to have an unwanted app installed if you don’t carefully read every screen.

.

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Work-with-Office-safe-modes-dedf944a-5f4b-4afb-a453-528af4f7ac72

.

************* Optional Reading *************

.

Wiki for Doug Robbins Trouble Shooting List - ABBYY

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/wiki/officeversion\_other-word/doug-robbins-expanding-word-trouble-shooting-list/a0f9483e-6335-43e6-9c7b-332130e60787

This is a collection of generic trouble shooting fixes for Office (2013)

.

Fix: “Microsoft Word has stopped working” – Turn off Addins in Pictures

http://www.thewindowsclub.com/fix-microsoft-word-has-stopped-working

.

How to find out whether any Word Add-ins have been installed

.

Enable or disable add-ins in Office programs - Support - Office.com

.