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asdfasfqw3lge1237u8ey's avatar
asdfasfqw3lge1237u8ey
Copper Contributor
Mar 01, 2024
Solved

Get Excel to fill a series of sequential dates

I'm putting together a spreadsheet to track expenses.  I can't get the dates to autofill correctly.  I'll manually enter, say, 01/02/2024 for the first of February, and then drag across the top of each column like normal - but then the second column will read 01/02/2025, and so on.  How can I get it to autofill sequential days, instead of days exactly 365 days apart?  Why would anyone want that in the first place?  I've tried manually entering the first couple dates, still doesn't work; you just get the first three days of Feb, then a jump to the next year, over and over. 

 

 

  • asdfasfqw3lge1237u8ey I suspect that you are using a structured Excel table. If so, that the header fields are texts even when the may look like dates. Dragging a text that ends with a number, down or across, will increment that last number for every cell.

     

    Now, when you say that you are going to track expenses then it not a good idea to capture the date in different columns for every month. It is much better to build a table in a tabular form, for example [Date, Expense Type, Description, Amount] and then enter the expense items as the come in and use a pivot table to created reports/summaries by month, by expense type or whatever.

  • Riny_van_Eekelen's avatar
    Riny_van_Eekelen
    Platinum Contributor

    asdfasfqw3lge1237u8ey I suspect that you are using a structured Excel table. If so, that the header fields are texts even when the may look like dates. Dragging a text that ends with a number, down or across, will increment that last number for every cell.

     

    Now, when you say that you are going to track expenses then it not a good idea to capture the date in different columns for every month. It is much better to build a table in a tabular form, for example [Date, Expense Type, Description, Amount] and then enter the expense items as the come in and use a pivot table to created reports/summaries by month, by expense type or whatever.

    • asdfasfqw3lge1237u8ey's avatar
      asdfasfqw3lge1237u8ey
      Copper Contributor

      Riny_van_EekelenI think that was the cause.  I fixed it by switching off the table (R-click, Table, Convert to Range), then re-typing the first date for the month.  This new date cooperated with the auto-fill.  Once each month had its columns renamed properly, I re-tabled them. 

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