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AutoFill is limited to 255 characters in Excel

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This article was previously published under Q199503
For a Microsoft Excel 97 version of this article, see 156350� (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/156350/EN-US/ ) .

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Symptoms

When you fill a series in a range of cells, the AutoFill feature may not update the series values in these cells. This behavior occurs if you either use the fill handle to fill a cell value down (or across) a range of cells or if you point to Fill on the Edit menu and then click Series.

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Cause

In Microsoft Excel, you may enter 32,767 characters into a cell, but the AutoFill feature will not work on cells that contain more than 255 characters. Instead of detecting and filling a series, Microsoft Excel will instead copy the cells.

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More information

By dragging the fill handle of a cell, you can copy that cell to other cells in the same row or column. If the cell contains a number, date, or time period that Microsoft Excel can extend in a series, the values are incremented. For example, if you have "Qtr1" (without the quotation marks) in cell A1, and you fill this down to cell A4, you will end up with the following: 

   A1: Qtr1
   A2: Qtr2
   A3: Qtr3
   A4: Qtr4

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Keywords: KB199503, kbprb

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Article Info
Article ID : 199503
Revision : 5
Created on : 1/23/2007
Published on : 1/23/2007
Exists online : False
Views : 532