filling a large range

[James Parsly]

In XL 2002 (sp 2), if I try to use the edit...fill..
series command to fill in numbers across a large range
of cells, the step value won't get computed. It always
shows up as 1. The limit seems to be 32760 cells, by
which I mean it computes the step for 32760, but not for
32761. Is there any good reason for this? Probably
got something to do with a 16 bit integer, but then
why not 32767 as the limit?

 

[Dave Peterson]

I put 1 in A1 and selected column A.

Then I did an Edit|Fill|series. I used a step value of 3 and got 196,606 in
A65536.

What did you do that didn't work?

 

[James Parsly]

Put 1 in A1, then move to the bottom and put any number in A65536.
Select the range, do an Edit|Fill|Series. It should calculate the
step for you, but instead the step always shows up as 1. In cases where
you supply the starting and ending number, and expect excel to compute
the step to fill in the cells in between, it apparently won't compute
the step if the cells are more than 32760 rows apart.

 

[Dave Peterson]

Ah. Gotcha. But I don't have a suggestion for you.

 

[Gord Dibben]

James

Enter 1 in A1.

Enter 123456789(or any number) in A65536

Select Column A and Edit>Fill>Series>Trend

Gord Dibben Excel MVP

 

[James Parsly]

That seems to do it. But it still seems to me that it *ought* to work
without using the Trend for large ranges, since it works without it
for ranges up to 32760 rows.

 

[Gord Dibben]

Gord shrugs, slaps forehead and states "I dunno".

Excel's "oughts" and Excel's "do's" can sometimes be far-removed.

Gord