Ten Minute Guide to Excel 97

Entering a Custom Series

Although AutoFill is good for a brief series of entries, you may encounter situations in which you need more control. Excel can handle several different types of series, as shown in Table 5.2.

Table 5.2. Data Series

Series	Initial Entries	Resulting Series
Linear	1,2	1, 2, 3, 4
	100,99	100, 99, 98, 97
	1,3	1, 3, 5, 7
Growth	10, 20	10, 20, 30, 40
	10, 50	10, 50, 90, 130
Date	Mon, Wed	Mon, Wed, Fri
	Feb, May	Feb, May, Aug
	Qtr1, Qtr3	Qtr1, Qtr3, Qtr1
	1992, 1995	1992, 1995, 1998

Basically, you make two sample entries for your series in adjacent cells, and Excel uses them to calculate the rest of the series. Here's what you do:

1. Enter the first value in one cell and press Enter.

2. Move to the second cell and enter the next value in the series.

3. Select both ...