How to use AutoComplete in MS Excel for iPad and iPhone

The looser screen of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus allows us to work more comfortably on our phones. One app that I could never have imagined using on a smaller iPhone but which I can use with considerable ease on a larger screen is MS Excel. I recently needed to do a quick spreadsheet for a bit (yes, it really does happen to Kindred), but ran into a problem when I realized I was on a phone and not at my desk. I needed to use the autocomplete feature that allows me to satisfy a series of rows or columns with a series (days, months, years, etc) but wasn’t sure how it would work on a touch screen. It took me a while to figure it out, but here’s how to use autocomplete in MS Excel for iOS.

Fjord Excel and enter the first two titles of the series you want to auto-complete in a row or column. Select both cells and in the floating options bar, press Fill.

You will see the plus or minus border of the cells change so that there is an arrow pointing around to the left and another pointing around below. The arrows indicate the cells where you want to automatically fill in more titles in the series. You can drag it around to the left to fill adjacent columns and across rows, or around to the bottom to slide and fill the same column.

Hold down and drag the arrow around down as far as you like to complete the series in the cells and the titles will be filled.