It’s not surprising that a lot of users want to know how to autofill dates in OpenOffice Calc. You can do this by duplicating a portion of the existing content. However, this may not be the best solution if you have a long list of data to copy and paste. A better approach would be to do a bit of sleuthing and figure out what you can do without.
For example, let’s say you want to autofill a list of birthdays. The first step would be to calculate how many days between the given two dates. In order to do this, you would need to know how long the months of January and February are and what you want to call the eve of these dates.
You can do this by selecting a cell and using the mouse. After this, you can choose to manually input a value or drag the cell handle to a new destination. Alternatively, you can use the fill series feature to automate this process. This is a more robust method of achieving the same result.
While there are a number of ways to do this, the most obvious is to drag the cell handle. Depending on your version of OpenOffice, you will likely be presented with the same options. Once you have made your selection, the auto fill feature will do the rest. Likewise, you can opt to manually edit the contents of the dragged cells to meet your particular requirements. Using this technique will save you the trouble of retyping or entering the data yourself.
The most important thing to remember is that you should only copy and paste a portion of the data. If you do this, be sure to remove the original contents before you perform the autofill. Also, be sure to select the appropriate formatting for the resulting data. This will ensure that you get the correct acrobat format.
The trick to autofilling dates is to ensure you have a clear vision of what you are doing. There are plenty of features and functions available in OpenOffice Calc to help make your life that much easier. Some of the more advanced are the Chart Wizard and the automatic extension of cell formatting. Fortunately, these options are a click away and are accompanied by a user guide in a handy folder. From there, you can proceed to the next task in a structured workflow.
For example, the auto fill function will automatically resize the text to fit the cells if necessary. However, the auto fill function does not handle hyphenation, so if you have a lot of hyphenated data to copy and paste, you might be better off trying to manually do the heavy lifting.