Imagine yourself sitting in front of your computer, filling cells in Google Sheets. You need help inserting the right values and appropriate formulas without wasting too much time. That’s where Google Sheets’ Autocomplete feature comes in handy. In this article, we’ll explain how to use this convenient functionality.
Enabling and Disabling Autocomplete Functions in Google Sheets
To begin, it’s important to know how to enable or disable the Autocomplete functions in Google Sheets. Here’s how:
- Go to the “Tools” tab → “Autocomplete”
- Check (to enable) or uncheck (to disable) each function based on your preferences.
What is Autocomplete and How to Use it in Google Sheets?
Autocomplete is a feature that allows you to fill cells with the same formula by providing autocomplete suggestions with a preview of each value. If you wish to accept the suggestions, click the checkmark in the pop-up window or press “Ctrl”+”Enter” (for Windows) or “⌘”+”Enter” (for Mac).
This feature saves you time because you don’t need to manually copy and paste a formula into other cells. If you find this feature unnecessary, you can disable it by unchecking “Enable Autocomplete” in the menu.
In addition to the above function, Google Sheets allows you to automatically fill other cells based on a series of existing values following certain patterns.
- Enter a value such as text, numbers, or dates in at least two adjacent cells in a row or column.
- Select the cells whose values you want to use to fill other cells.
- Drag the small blue square located in the bottom right corner of the selected range downwards or to the right, or simply double-click it.
For example, in the example table below, cells C5, C6, and C7 need to be filled with values 102, 103, and 104, respectively.
What is Formula Suggestions and How to Use it in Google Sheets?
The formula suggestion feature displays recommended formulas based on the values surrounding the cell in which you are going to enter a formula. The suggestions appear when you type the “=” sign in the cell. If you accept the suggestion, press the “Enter” key. Otherwise, continue typing the formula you originally wanted to insert.
Let’s take the following example. Suppose you want to calculate the total sales amount for client A to E. As you can see, when you type “=”, the recommended formula appears with a calculation result. That’s how this feature works.
As mentioned earlier, this function changes suggestions based on the values around the cell where you’re going to type the formula.
In the example below, all values remain unchanged except for one in cell B15 compared to the previous example. Because we added “Average” in cell B15, the Google Sheets suggestion changed from the SUM formula to the Average function.
What is Formula Correction and How to Use it in Google Sheets?
The formula correction feature helps you identify and modify an incorrect formula and suggests a correct formula by taking into account the formulas of surrounding cells, columns, or rows.
For example, in the image below, we entered two addition formulas of 200 to a value from a cell above in cells C11 and C12. If you insert a multiplication formula of 200 by a value from a cell above in cell C13, the formula correction displays the seemingly correct formula to fix the potential error.
Named Function Suggestions in Google Sheets
This functionality works similarly to “Formula Suggestions,” but a key assumption is that you need to save named functions in your Google Sheets beforehand. Check out this article to learn more about named functions.
Conclusion
These are very useful functions when you want to insert data or formulas following a specific rule or pattern. These functions help you fill cells with appropriate values or formulas, or identify and correct incorrect inputs.
However, if you need to insert different formulas or enter different values, it may be wise to disable this functionality, as seeing suggestions every time can be annoying and distracting.
Feel free to explore more Google Sheets features on Crawlan.com to enhance your productivity in spreadsheet work.
