Autofill in Excel 2013/2016

Now I have been a bit late getting to the party on this one! But having used it a couple of times, I have begun to see its potential.

Imagine you have two text strings in Columns A and B, and want to join them together in Column C. In older versions of Excel, you need to use the CONCATENATE functions.

In Excel 2013/2016, type the completed text string in the cell (eg C1). Position your mouse in the bottom left corner of the cell to be copied, then click and drag down with your RIGHT MOUSE button. From the menu choose Flash Fill.

This works for a variety of text strings, as long as Excel can identify the pattern. In the example below, we are trying to extract the first names from the email addresses. By typing the first name in B1, and using flash fill, Excel recognises the pattern, and repeats the same action for each email address.

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