quick ? on how to auto fill text from one cell to another

[President]

Hi everyone,

I'm going nuts trying to figure out how to autofill text from one cell
to another. For example, everytime I type text into cell A20, I want
the exact same thing to cell BL20. The same for B20, BL20, etc.

How do I go about that? I already know how to copy formulas from one
cell to another by dragging the skinny black line of the cell. I guess
I just need the formula for a simple IDENTICAL copying of text.

Thanks in advance,

Mike

 

[Gord Dibben]

Looks like a typo in your post.

Perhaps AL20 same as A20?

In AL20 enter =A20

Drag/copy that across to BL20


Gord Dibben MS Excel MVP

 

[President]

Hi Gord,

Thanks for the prompt reply. No typo. It's the content that is in
cell A20(yeah it's the first column) that I want to automatically fill
in: BL20. That way I don't have to type it twice. The same for A21
copied to BL21.

Thanks again,

Mike

 

[Spreadsheet]

In cell BL20 type =A20.

Now, anything entered in A20 will appear in BL20

 

[MIKE]

For some reason it just shows in that cell "=A20"

This is driving me nuts. What am I doing wrong?

 

[Dave Peterson]

Format that cell (BL20 as General or anything other than text), then retype the
formula.

But I like this instead:

=if(a20="","",a20)

 

[MIKE]

whew! I guess it was just that I had to format the cells. Thanks a
million dave! ;-)

Mike

 

[Gord Dibben]

OK

You've got lotsa help but see where my "typo" question came from........

For example, everytime I type text into cell A20, I want
the exact same thing to cell BL20. The same for B20, BL20, etc.

You refer to BL20 twice. Once for A20 and once for B20.


Gord

 

[MIKE]

Sorry about that Gord. Thanks for all your help and everyone else.

Another ?: How do I make Excel associate numbers to each other?

For example, I sell on ebay and ebay has category#'s for every
category. I'm also opening up an e-commerce store. Only thing is that
the category#'s in my e-commerce store aren't the same as ebay's. I
wish I could just change the store categories to ebay's, but it's not
possible. For instance, in my ebay store, PS2 action adventure games
carry 54321, and in my e-commerce store (off ebay) the category code is
987654 (these are arbitrary numbers). Is there any way to simplify
this so when i put in one category code into a cell, another cell would
translate/associate that code with it's corresponding code?

Hopefully I didn't sound too confusing.

Thanks,

Mike

 

[Gord Dibben]

Mike

If you have the two lists of associated/corresponding numbers in adjacent
columns you can use a VLOOKUP formula to achieve what you want.

Assume you have Sheet2 col A with ebay numbers and col B with your corresponding
numbers. 100 numbers per column

In B1 of sheet1 enter this formula =VLOOKUP(A1,Sheet2!A1:B100,2,FALSE)

In A1 of sheet1 enter an ebay number.

Your number will be returned to B1

Then you'll want to learn how to make a Data Validation drop-down in sheet1 A1
so's you can just pick from the drop-down.

Best to visit Debra Dalgleish's site for DV ins and outs.

http://www.contextures.on.ca/xlDataVal01.html

Also see her index at http://www.contextures.on.ca/tiptech.html

Tons of info and laid out very nicely with lots of screen shots for clarity.

One of our most often referenced sites.


Gord Dibben MS Excel MVP