How Data Fill works in Numbers

Peter Rukavina

I’m a longtime AppleWorks user. For a somewhat clunky all-in-one, it’s a pretty capable piece of software, capable of leaping tall bounds, and its spreadsheet has almost all the functionality you’d ever need. But my shiny new copy of iWork arrived a few weeks ago, so I’ve been trying to wrap my head around Numbers, its new spreadsheet piece.

Yesterday I went looking for how to do a “data fill” in Numbers — I needed a column filled with the numbers from 205 to 386 and I didn’t want to type them all in. In AppleWorks this was done by selecting Calculate \| Fill Special from the menu, followed by entry of a start value and an increment. In Numbers it’s almost unbelievably intuitive (so intuitive I couldn’t intuit it). Witness the following 10-second how-to video (created in the equally too-intuitive new iMovie):

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Submitted by Peter Rukavina on

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The porn-music is my own addition. Obviously I have a complex relationship with data.

Submitted by David Richardson on

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Most of my usage is with simple worksheets that benefit from extensive formatting - ‘Numbers’ is a boon for this. It has some strange limitations though: there isn’t much flexibility in the creation of page headers (especially with graphics), and there’s no Applescript support yet!

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Photo of Peter RukavinaI am . I am a writer, letterpress printer, and a curious person.

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