complete text in excel

Question

I am using excel and am trying to get the system to complete the text in a column by typing 2-3 letters. This seems to work in one of my columns but not others. Can anyone help?

Answer 1

Good day JEANETTE GULLIFORD

I understand that you are using Excel and expecting it to complete text automatically after typing the first few letters, but this only seems to work in one column and not in others. It sounds like you are referring to Excel’s AutoComplete for cell values, where Excel suggests a previous text entry after you type the first few letters.

First, please note that this feature works column by column, so Excel will only suggest text that already exists in the same column where you are typing. If the same text exists in another column, Excel will not use that as a suggestion.

With that behavior, you can check the following:

1. Make sure AutoComplete is enabled by going to File > Options > Advanced, then under Editing options, check Enable AutoComplete for cell values.
2. If the matching text already exists in the same column but Excel still does not suggest it, also check whether the existing values contain extra spaces, blank rows, filtered/hidden rows, or mixed formatting.
3. If you want to reuse values from another column, a practical workaround is to create a Data Validation list using that column as the source. Then you can select the value from a drop-down instead of typing it each time.

• Select the cells where you want to enter the values.
• Go to Data > Data Validation.
• In Allow, choose List.
• In the Source box, select the cells that contain the existing text values, for example =$A$2:$A$20.
• Select OK.

After that, those cells will show a drop-down list using the values from the source column, so you can choose the value instead of typing it manually. Note that this is not exactly the same as AutoComplete, but it is usually the closest built-in workaround when the values are stored in another column.

Hope this could help. feel free to post back if you need further support or clarification.

---

If the answer is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and kindly upvote it. If you have extra questions about this answer, please click "Comment".

Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.