Calc fill string

[fredriley]

This is driving me potty. I’ve just put the string ‘s2member_level1’ into a cell. I fill down, I get +1s all the way down, eg:

s2member_level1
s2member_level2
s2member_level3
s2member_level4
etc

If I format the cells as text before filling, the same happens. The cell with the original value in already reports text formatting. If I precede the string with a quotation mark, I get +1s all the way down with a quotation mark in front. If I enclose the string with quotes I don’t get +1s, but I then have a columnn of strings with quotation marks which I have to get rid of.

This is the simplest thing, and I’ve spent an hour on it! I have tried to read TFM but the bit on fills is pretty much as you’d expect. I’ve used spreadsheets for years and haven’t come across this behaviour before. What is going on, can someone please tell me?

[fredriley]

0

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fredriley gravatar image fredriley
1 ● 1

Thanks, Mario, I can see that a feature to increment a string might come in handy. For instance, if you wanted to create a batch of users - user1, user2…userN - then that would be a faff to do with a normal formula. So although it drove me bonkers the other night, I’m not complaining.

[mariosv]

Hi fredriley,
if you press Ctrl while dragging then the same text is copied.

[fredriley]

Ok, thanks very much for that answer - I’ll do that. I’m still curious, though - why does Calc see the string ‘s2member_level1’ as a number? Or is there something else going on that means that it increments the last digit on fill?

Cheers

Fred

[mariosv]

I think it was a request of enhancement. It is very useful when you need, because do it with formulas is a bit tricky.