The other day I was happily designing forms and battling psychotic drop-down boxes in Access, when I heard a soft whimper from a colleague. I asked if everything was alright, and he explained that he typed in the wrong year in an Excel spreadsheet, which has a daily date field, starting at the beginning of the month, and going on for several months. He had an incorrect year for about 6 months worth of dates. I said to him, "Use the force, uh, I mean, use the fill handle." The quizzical look on his face led me to believe he had never heard of the fill handle. I thought, “Wow! Maybe there are others that don't know about this time-saving feature of Excel: The Magical Mystery Fill Handle.” 

Sometimes that kind of stuff catches me off guard, like the other day when I was disappointed to get the word, 'doppelganger' as my word of the day. I said, "Everyone knows what 'doppelganger' means." And then someone said they'd never heard it before. I said, "Oh. Well, it simply means a double." The reason I assumed everyone knew is because it's often used in comics, as an evil twin, an evil counterpart to the hero. . .

. . .which brings me to the fill handle. The fill handle can be thought of as a doppelganger to the trusty selection cross. Everyone who's ever used Excel knows that you use the big white cross to select a single cell or a range of cells. Well, the fill handle is a small black cross, that's used to efficiently copy and paste, but can also be used to complete a fill series. That's where the time-saving comes in. A fill series is any range of sequential numbers or dates that can be automatically created by using the fill handle.

In Figure 1, I simply type "Jan" in cell A2, and then use the fill handle to drag the cell down and create the month headers. But how does one see the fill handle? Well, if you stand in front of a mirror and chant the words "fill handle" five times, it will instantly appear. Alternately, the fill handle can be found in the lower right hand corner of the selected cell, at the small black square. Don't see the small black square? Don't panic. Go to Tools. . .Options, then click on the Edit tab. Make sure the “Allow cell drag and drop” check box is selected — that's what allows you to use the fill handle. You will also see an option underneath it to warn you if you are going to overwrite any cell data — which is exactly what happens when you use the fill handle on cells that already have data! It's a good idea to check that option, too, as it is possible to drag the fill handle when you meant to drag the selection handle. Those are the times when undo is your best friend.

So when you see the small black square and get the fill handle icon, you can just click and drag down or across, and it will copy the dates in chronological order for however far you go. This works with days and months, months and years, quarters or virtually anything you can think of. You can also type full names or abbreviated names — “Monday” works just as well as “Mon.” The years going across in row 1 of Figure 1 are a little trickier to do, but still far easier than manually typing them yourself. What you have to do for any type of number sequencing is prime it (i.e. give it the pattern it should duplicate). For the year headers, I type in "1995" in cell B1, and then type in "1996" in cell C1. From there, I select both cells B1 and C1, and then, with both cells selected, I use the fill handle to drag right to get the remaining years I want. This can be used with any number sequence – if you want your numbers to start at one and then skip 4 numbers, you would do it the same way. 
 

As I mentioned before, the fill handle can be used to copy and paste quickly. I often use the fill handle in this way to copy formulas. What's great about this is that the formulas are relatively copied. No, that doesn't mean it disapproves of your significant other or asks why you haven't called or stopped over. 

This means that even though you are copying a formula that applies to a specific column, it will change the formula to apply to the column you are copying to. In Figure 2, the formula in cell B15 is SUM(B3:B14). By using the fill handle to drag the formula across to the right, the formula changes for each column, i.e. C15 contains the formula SUM(C3:C14) and so on. This is particularly handy when you have to do complicated formulas with nested IFs or other unsightly functions.

So there you have it! All the functionality of the wonderful fill handle in Excel. Never manually type dates or sequential number series again! Copy your formulas with grace and ease! Be the envy of all your coworkers when you get your spreadsheets done 90% faster, and are able to handle an increased workload! Wait a minute...