How to use auto fill and flash fill in Excel
Description: Sometimes you need to enter a lot of repetitive information in Excel, such as dates, and it can be really tedious. But the AutoFill feature can help. Or say you have information in Excel that isn’t formatted the way you need it to be, and going through the entire list manually to correct it is daunting. In this case, Flash Fill (a new feature in Excel 2013) can do the work for you.
Type the first date in the series.
Put the mouse pointer over the bottom right-hand corner of the cell until it’s a black plus sign.
Click and hold the left mouse button, and drag the plus sign over the cells you want to fill. And Excel fills in the series for you automatically using the AutoFill feature.
Say you have information in Excel that isn’t formatted the way you need it to be, such as this list of names. And going through the entire list manually to correct them is daunting. Here, Flash Fill can help.
Type the first name the way you want it.
Start to type the next name, and Excel provides a preview of the names formatted the way you want.
Press Enter, and Flash Fill fills in the names for you.
If Flash doesn't appear to be working it may not be turned on. To enable this feature go to Data and then Flash Fill or hit the Ctrl + E keys.
AutoFill and Flash Fill are tremendous time savers, and in the link below they are covered in more detail.
Link: https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Use-AutoFill-and-Flash-Fill-2e79a709-c814-4b27-8bc2-c4dc84d49464?ui=en-US&rs=en-US&ad=US