Auto Fill is a powerful feature in Excel that enables you to quickly populate rows or columns with a variety of data types, including:
- The same value or string
- An incremented value
- A decremented value
- A value calculated using a formula
Let's see examples of each of them,
1. Auto Fill same value or string

As you may see in the above example, in column A we have a number, and in column B we have a string name Sam.
You can keep taking your cursor to the bottom left side of the cell and the + sign cursor appears, hold on your mouse, and drag down until the cell you want the value to be repeated.
Or, you can also make use of the keyboard shortcut Control + D on your Mac to fill in all the selected columns.
2. Auto Fill Increment values

This is one of the most valuable scenarios, fill in a few values and drag the + pointer till the cell you want the values to be filled. As in the above example 1, 2, 3, 4... 10
3. Auto Fill Decrement values

Here you will fill few values in descending order eg 10, 9, and use + pointer to fill the rest of the required cells.
4. A value calculated using a formula

Let's say you have numbers 1 to 10 in column A, and in column C, repeated value 2, in cell D2 you have the formula = A2*C2
Now all you need to do is, click on the + cursor and drag to apply the formula in column D
Note: You can also double-click on the + pointer and the rest of the down cells will be auto-filled.
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