Using Autofill to Create Chronological or Numerical Series

Instead of typing each month in successive cells, you can use Autofill to quickly add the months of the year to a Numbers table.

To add months using Autofill:

  1. Select a cell, type “January,” and press Enter.
  2. Select the cell again and change the formatting — font, font style, size, and alignment — using the controls in the toolbar.
  3. Now grab the Fill handle in the cell’s bottom-right corner and drag to the right (to fill adjacent cells in the same row) or down (to fill successive cells in the same column) with the months of the year.

Want to populate a table row or column with the days of the week? Just type “Sunday” into the cell and follow the same three steps.

Can Numbers do the same for numerical series? Absolutely.

To add a numerical series using Autofill:

  1. Enter “5” in one cell and “10” in the cell immediately below it.
  2. Select both cells, grab the Fill handle, and drag down.

Since you incremented the values in the selected cells by 5, Numbers also fills successive cells with increments of 5.