How Data Fill works in Numbers

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):

Comments

Steven Garrity's picture
Steven Garrity on August 30, 2007 - 15:37 Permalink

Does Numbers come with that pseudo-porn soundtrack?

Peter Rukavina's picture
Peter Rukavina on August 30, 2007 - 15:42 Permalink

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

Isaac Grant's picture
Isaac Grant on August 30, 2007 - 16:18 Permalink

This has also been the way Excel has done data fill for at least 10 years.

Peter Rukavina's picture
Peter Rukavina on August 30, 2007 - 16:22 Permalink

Shows how much I’ve used Excel.

David Richardson's picture
David Richardson on August 30, 2007 - 18:39 Permalink

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!