Feb 27 2006
Q: I saw one of my co-workers enter a series of months across the top of a spreadsheet.  She did it so quickly I didn’t see how it was done.  Can you tell me how to do this?

A: This Excel short-cut is very handy.  It works with Months and Days of the Week and can be used to fill-in either rows or columns
 
Say you are creating a spreadsheet with a row of Months across the top.  Here’s how you can fill-in the Months:
1. Place the Cursor into the cell you want to start the series of Months (Ex. Cell A1)
2. Type in ‘January’
-Notice the black box at the lower right-hand side of the cell (or at least it is a little darker around the corner)
3. Place the Cursor over that black box until it turns into a solid cross ‘+’
4. Drag to the next cell B1
-It is automatically filled-in with February
This also works with abbreviations (Jan, Mon, etc.)!