Using Custom Lists with AutoFill and Custom Sort (104439)

SUMMARY

In Microsoft Excel, you can create custom lists to use as the basis for a custom AutoFill as well as a custom sort.

To create a custom list, click Options or Preferences (on a Macintosh computer) on the Tools menu, click the Custom Lists tab, and then add the list items.

Using Custom Lists with Custom Sorting

When you perform a custom sort, the precedence of one list over another is not important. You can select the custom list that you want to use to define the sort order. To do this, click Options in the Sort dialog box, and then select the custom list you want in the First Key Sort Order box.

Using Custom Lists with the AutoFill Feature

If you have more than one list and the lists contain one or more of the same elements, when you enter one of the common elements into a worksheet and create a custom AutoFill list, the custom list that is applied to the AutoFill is the one that you most recently edited.

MORE INFORMATION

Custom lists are useful if you frequently use a special list of data such as a product or vendor list. Once you have created a list, you can quickly place this list on a new worksheet by typing one of the list's elements, selecting it, and dragging the fill handle. Unfortunately, you cannot select which custom list you want your AutoFill list to be based on. The following is an example of how list precedence is determined.

Example

If you create List 1 first and List 2 second, List 2 takes precedence when you create an AutoFill list.

   List 1             List 2
   ------------------------------

   High               High
   Medium             Medium High
   Low                Medium
                      Medium Low
                      Low

For example, if you type "Medium" (without the quotation marks) in cell A1, select the fill handle, and then drag it from cell A1 to A6, the following list results:

   A1: Medium
   A2: Medium Low
   A3: Low
   A4: High
   A5: Medium High
   A6: Medium

If you then edit List 1 by removing, adding, or removing and re-adding an element, List 1 is the list that is used when you create an AutoFill list. To force a specific list to take precedence, select it, remove and re-add an element, and then click OK. Note that when you add an element to a list, if you click Add, a new list is created; if you click OK, the existing list is updated.