Hello everyone, this video covers the topic of flash fill (Ctrl + E as a shortcut) in Excel. This will not replace the need for all formulas but it can be a great way to complete simple tasks that follow a pattern. I appreciate all the feedback and comments below and will look to implement your thoughts. Thank you for the support and wishing everyone a great day.
Yes, definitely not a replacement for formulas. It's also kind of dangerous. You assume that the information is a formula and yet when you correct the one of the last or first name fields, the name doesn't get updated. Worse, if you don't know this, you won't notice it.
As is, I consider it a novelty and not something I would want to have to spend time thinking about as to when I was willing to accept it versus putting in a formula. I would be much happier if it gave the option to put in the formula that it "determined" was what you wanted. It is sort of like writing with a pen rather than with a pencil and eraser. You just know that if you use it, someone is going to want a tweak made.
+TheMightyNoseGoblin You're so lucky to have found this tip so early in your learning process! A lot (most?) of us have been doing these things without Ctrl + E for _decades._
The fact that it fills the fields with the current values rather than dynamically recalculating them means the process is human-controlled every time. Formulae take a little more time to setup, but will recalculate every time.
Congratulations! You just broke the minds of my Teams group chat. Now we are all calculating how many hours we have collectively lost by not knowing this... :P Thanks for the video!
That's good introduction. But also you could have mentioned the technical name for this which is "Flash fill" in excel. This will help people to explore it in more detail.
I've been using Excel for years and never saw this cool shortcut until your video. Thank you! I was set to retire this August, but I've decided to put it of for another year, just so I can use your trick at work!
I knew that if I went to the trouble of entering a formula, I could copy that cell and paste it down the column and it would use relevant new cells to perform the same function but this Control+E is nice - Thanks.
I've used this often when doing data cleanup (prior to even basic knowledge of Power Query [much better name than "Get & Transform"]). The main problem I see with it is that it's not sustainable or easily extensible. It's great for quick and dirty (worked great on my 20,000 row sheets of data). But repeated use makes it quite difficult. If you're dealing with large amounts of data requiring lots of manipulation and repetition, Power Query is a much better way to go (in general). Now, if you can use this "formula-by-example" approach, where you just enter examples based on data, and you can get a formula produced, that would be something. Regardless, it's always helpful to have a nice toolbox full of handy tools. You just need to know limitations and functional expertise (what works best in particular situations or types of data). Practice and experiment with COPIES of data (I call this play so it seems more fun).
As always in Excel, the simpler the solution is (if there is a feature on the Ribbon or a shortcut key combo), the less flexible or useful it is if the data changes.
A spectacular shortcut that I wish I would have learned about years ago! I will share this with my team and look for other videos from you. Great presentation, and in the perfect amount of time to make the point. I've read through many of the comments and learned there are some limitations (like when the data changes, the values don't update which is also helpful to know. Well done!
Thank you so much for this helpful tip. As a teacher, I can see where this application will replace CONCAT for extracting Given and Family names but also LEFT and RIGHT which I use to parse student numbers. Excellent tip! Great for setting up Mail Merger to generate test results. After sorting by score and inserting a row between grades, I was able to quickly make grade-based comments, and then delete the blank rows.
When I was splitting time that didn't allow me to use Textsplit for some reason.... this would've saved me more time than I am willing to admit.... Thank you
At time of writing, Flash fill is really great, until the source data changes and the non-dynamic flash-filled column doesn't update until you Flash Fill again. Only formulas are guaranteed dynamic. Also it only seems to work with contiguous cells and not with large gaps between columns.
And it only works on the right side. Plus, why in hell would one ever use a spreadsheet to generate a form letter? A word processor document that uses the raw data is the better choice.
Very clever..........i only used Excell many years ago to produce a yearly budget accounting for my household needs and that took me many days to get it together.......I'm not computer literate at all and only scratched Word and had a short dabble with Excell, but I have the books on Excell and Word for Dummies etc.
Holy sht my man. Been using Excel for many years and this has to be the best tip ever. Can you share a vid with the "Top ten Quick tips" for 2022, 2023, etc.? Sub
I'm guessing that Ctrl-E is not dynamic so if i add extra rows to my data table or replace the table with new data it won't update automatically? It is a handy tip but need to be aware of any limitations
Hey there, thanks for the feedback. You are correct in that it won't dynamically update. It is similar to pasting as values after a formula is entered. Helpful for quick tasks but won't replace need for formulas in many situations. Have a great holiday weekend =)
I reckon I know my way around excel (formulas, macros, and all other advanced functions) but this was absolute magic to me haha how I never knew this before is simply laughable. Would have made my life so much easier back in the day when cleaning up massive data sets. I do need familiarise myself with all the new excel functionality though. Thanks for this 👍🏻
I was born in 52...that's 1952...AD...by the way, and never got into this while going through life. However, I've done a lot of traveling to see motor races, and put together a spreadsheet of race venues. It covers states in the US, provinces in Canada, and any other country, which is a total of 215 venues. I used the formulas method, because that's all I knew what to do. Any time I add a venue, it automatically adds to the current total of which country, and the Grand Total. It was fun to set up, and "feels" like I made a program, even though I know that's not what it is. But, that wasn't my first thought when you showed what "Ctrl+E" is for. My first thought was, how the hell do you remember all of these shortcuts?
Thank you for watching and I hope the video helped. This stuff is my daily job so I have built up muscle memory over time. I still remember when a friend showed me VLOOKUP years ago and I couldn't comprehend it. Now Excel is one of my favorite programs and I use it all the time to built reporting templates and make work easier. Thanks for watching and if you run into any questions send me a comment and I'll take a look. All the best,
With real world data, it often requires double checking and adjustment. Particularly when selecting a substring from a string. After several manual entries it usually gets the right way to do the task, but if you have multiple rows of data, you still have to check that out for everything right.
That's incredible, I like formulas but this is very useful for quick and dirty tasks when I'm not going to use the workbook over and over.. This can be a real timesaver. thanks for searching
So now I will have to change my "activate developer options"-Key in my Excel sheet at work to another combination. I think, this can be very handy for me in some situations. Thanks!
I've gone through these comments and for the life of me cannot understand why there are so many fools that walk this earth. Great video. Succinct, clear, audio/video was crystal clear, explanations spot on. I have to admit I saw this pop up on my home page and I was reluctant but came out pretty darn amazed. Thank you, great job.
Thank you! Although I usually need the output to change when inputs are changed, added or deleted, this is another quick way to do something on the spot.
One pretty important missing piece of information i believe is from which office/excel version is this function implemented. In other words back to which version is it compatible. happen to work or have worked at places that still have a very old version of excel. a place used office 97-03 my current place has office 2010 but i manage to uncouple my pc from the network controlled limits and installed the 2021...
Hello everyone, this video covers the topic of flash fill (Ctrl + E as a shortcut) in Excel. This will not replace the need for all formulas but it can be a great way to complete simple tasks that follow a pattern. I appreciate all the feedback and comments below and will look to implement your thoughts. Thank you for the support and wishing everyone a great day.
Yes, definitely not a replacement for formulas. It's also kind of dangerous. You assume that the information is a formula and yet when you correct the one of the last or first name fields, the name doesn't get updated. Worse, if you don't know this, you won't notice it.
As is, I consider it a novelty and not something I would want to have to spend time thinking about as to when I was willing to accept it versus putting in a formula. I would be much happier if it gave the option to put in the formula that it "determined" was what you wanted.
It is sort of like writing with a pen rather than with a pencil and eraser. You just know that if you use it, someone is going to want a tweak made.
What is the easy way for combine Birth (in cell A1) and Date (in cell A2) into Birthdate (in cell A2)?
@@BW022 Yup, this is pretty much worse than using formulas. Goes right into my "never use this shit" bin
What about the opposite?
I have been learning Excel for a few weeks now and this is one of the best tips I have seen.
Thank you for watching. Let me know if you have any questions.
+TheMightyNoseGoblin You're so lucky to have found this tip so early in your learning process! A lot (most?) of us have been doing these things without Ctrl + E for _decades._
Been working with Excel for 20 years now. Did not know this… Wish I could like your video more then once
Ditto!
That's a relatively recent feature, so no :)
Flash fill was introduced in Microsoft office, 2013.
The fact that it fills the fields with the current values rather than dynamically recalculating them means the process is human-controlled every time. Formulae take a little more time to setup, but will recalculate every time.
@creanero Correct. One DOES NOT actually replace the other, especially considering the distinct functionality...
Exactly. Ctrl+E is for this type of one off situation that comes up very often.
formulae?
@@neverhit17 _Formulae_ is an acceptable plural of formula however _formulas_ is normally used in general conversation like this.
I saw the same thing. Without dynamically updating, I have a hard time finding a use-case for this.
I'm shocked! Use professionally excel for years, but this one is one of the best!!! Thanks!
Congratulations! You just broke the minds of my Teams group chat. Now we are all calculating how many hours we have collectively lost by not knowing this... :P Thanks for the video!
That's good introduction. But also you could have mentioned the technical name for this which is "Flash fill" in excel. This will help people to explore it in more detail.
nice
I've been using Excel for years and never saw this cool shortcut until your video. Thank you! I was set to retire this August, but I've decided to put it of for another year, just so I can use your trick at work!
Thank you =)
Let me know if there are any other tricks you'd like to see.
🤯 MY MIND HAS JUST BEEN BLOWN BY THIS TIP!
Wow! That was the most productive 2:30 minutes of my whole day! Thank you 🙏🏻 for sharing!!!
Really appreciate the comment, thank you for watching =)
UNREAL.. this is just incredible.. more please
You've just Ctrl + E'd my life. Thank you 😊
This is truly a godsend ! I had never heard of this versatile tip. Thanks all the way from Denmark !
@@suresh1957 Welcome from Denmark =)
Wow, concise with no filler. I'm now a subscriber. Thank you
This is really really good. I used to think I a master of Excel. Never knew of this. Thanks for sharing
Holy smokes. Never knew this existed and I have been using Excel for 20 years. Awesome video. Thanks. 😊
Thanks so much!
I knew that if I went to the trouble of entering a formula, I could copy that cell and paste it down the column and it would use relevant new cells to perform the same function but this Control+E is nice - Thanks.
Wow, the Ctrl+E is soooo powerful. Saved me a million years in using functions. Thank you so much for sharing this. 👍👍
OMG! You have just made my life a bzillion times easier!!!!
Hey wanted to say thank you for the super chats =)
Let me know if you have any content topics you want me to cover and thank you for watching.
This is great feature I'm pleased to know about. I can see me using it in specific situations but it will never replace formulas if it's not dynamic.
GREAT explanation! I'm an excel noob and this was quick and to the point. Thank you!
Thank you!
I've used this often when doing data cleanup (prior to even basic knowledge of Power Query [much better name than "Get & Transform"]). The main problem I see with it is that it's not sustainable or easily extensible. It's great for quick and dirty (worked great on my 20,000 row sheets of data). But repeated use makes it quite difficult. If you're dealing with large amounts of data requiring lots of manipulation and repetition, Power Query is a much better way to go (in general).
Now, if you can use this "formula-by-example" approach, where you just enter examples based on data, and you can get a formula produced, that would be something. Regardless, it's always helpful to have a nice toolbox full of handy tools. You just need to know limitations and functional expertise (what works best in particular situations or types of data). Practice and experiment with COPIES of data (I call this play so it seems more fun).
I know, why the hell would they drop the powerquery name, if you need help online is easier to use powerquery name, is a unique identifier, the irony!
While not as much *fun* as functions 'n' formulas, I have always *loved* CTL+E's magical instant-ness!
As always in Excel, the simpler the solution is (if there is a feature on the Ribbon or a shortcut key combo), the less flexible or useful it is if the data changes.
A spectacular shortcut that I wish I would have learned about years ago! I will share this with my team and look for other videos from you. Great presentation, and in the perfect amount of time to make the point. I've read through many of the comments and learned there are some limitations (like when the data changes, the values don't update which is also helpful to know. Well done!
Thank you for the comment =)
Wow….I don’t know about this before…thanks for sharing this tips 😊
Thank you so much for this helpful tip. As a teacher, I can see where this application will replace CONCAT for extracting Given and Family names but also LEFT and RIGHT which I use to parse student numbers. Excellent tip! Great for setting up Mail Merger to generate test results. After sorting by score and inserting a row between grades, I was able to quickly make grade-based comments, and then delete the blank rows.
When I was splitting time that didn't allow me to use Textsplit for some reason.... this would've saved me more time than I am willing to admit.... Thank you
Thank you for commenting
I have a hard time remembering formulas. Thank you for this!
Formulae. I am not at all surprised you struggle, you are very probably an "American".
Thank you love the bite sized video and straight to the point with example 😊
Thanks. As an educator this will be helpful to my students.
That is brilliant! i've been using Excel for many years, but never knew about this 😃👍
Appreciate it!
Thanks!
This tip has changed my life! Thank you
At time of writing, Flash fill is really great, until the source data changes and the non-dynamic flash-filled column doesn't update until you Flash Fill again. Only formulas are guaranteed dynamic. Also it only seems to work with contiguous cells and not with large gaps between columns.
I was wondering about that, thanks
And it only works on the right side. Plus, why in hell would one ever use a spreadsheet to generate a form letter? A word processor document that uses the raw data is the better choice.
What a time saver! Thank you for sharing this great insight!!!
@@oliverphotography1 Really appreciate the comment =)
Onenoff solution is helpful, i prefer formula for a repetitive worksheet. Great tip, i learned something new
I am from Pakistan. your lecture is too too good.
Welcome from Pakistan =) Thank you for watching.
pretty useful in small stuffs
but it's not dynamic so any changes and you have to delete and CTRL+E again not feasible in large dataset
Definitely helpful to people who don't like to memorize many formulas
Holy smokes, this blew my mind. What a game-changer it's going to be for me. Thank you!
Brilliant - ctrl + E is my new mantra
Thank you for commenting =)
Very clever..........i only used Excell many years ago to produce a yearly budget accounting for my household needs and that took me many days to get it together.......I'm not computer literate at all and only scratched Word and had a short dabble with Excell, but I have the books on Excell and Word for Dummies etc.
I've been using spreadsheets for thirty years and I think this is magic!
I currently use free version of WPS Office and they call it Flash Fill.
What genius! Incredibly helpful! Thank you.
Appreciate it =)
I love this simple method....Thank You
Thank you!
Very crisp and clear. Thanks
Thank you as well =)
This is cool. I'm sort of a power user and didn't know about this.
I feel like you just saved me a lot of time. Thank you
Really appreciate it =)
Absolutely amazing tips! Thanks!
Thank you so much!
This has made my life much easier. Great 1!
Soon Excel will do what we think. I've said it often, it's an amazing program that I wish I knew more about.
Really appreciate the comment.
Certainly enjoyed it. very good tips.
Just WOW!!! I struggle daily with excel, this will be a game changer- Thank you
Holy sht my man. Been using Excel for many years and this has to be the best tip ever. Can you share a vid with the "Top ten Quick tips" for 2022, 2023, etc.? Sub
Thank you!
You don't have to ask for a subscribe, I find it very helpful.
Very useful.... Learned something new... Thank you
New to your channel from India, found it really worth it to subscribe. You have gain new one subscribed today. 🎉
Thank you and welcome =)
Thank you! I can't tell you how many times I used text-to-columns and then concatenate and thought I was the boss!
I'm guessing that Ctrl-E is not dynamic so if i add extra rows to my data table or replace the table with new data it won't update automatically? It is a handy tip but need to be aware of any limitations
Hey there, thanks for the feedback. You are correct in that it won't dynamically update. It is similar to pasting as values after a formula is entered. Helpful for quick tasks but won't replace need for formulas in many situations. Have a great holiday weekend =)
the last use of ctrl+E that i was looking for like crazy, 2:20
thank you sir!!!
Thank you for explaining and usage of flash fill option
OMG, where was this tip 15 years ago? I use data sets where this would be insanely useful. Thanks!!!
Note: Flash Fill (Ctrl + E) is only available in Excel 2013 and later.
This is the first and onbly thing I like about Excel
I reckon I know my way around excel (formulas, macros, and all other advanced functions) but this was absolute magic to me haha how I never knew this before is simply laughable. Would have made my life so much easier back in the day when cleaning up massive data sets. I do need familiarise myself with all the new excel functionality though. Thanks for this 👍🏻
Thank you so much for the comment, glad this video helped =)
Simply a great no fuss tip - thanks
wow, that's mindblowing ! thank you for the tip
Thank you so much for checking out the video =)
Eureka! I wish I knew this decades ago...
What sorcery is this!?? I am subscribed! 🤣😂😅
oh wow thank you for sharing this new tricks
Thank you mr. Career for that. This is very powerful
Really appreciate the comment =)
@@CareerSolutionsforTodayThanks
That's awesome! Thank you so much for sharing. Does this continue working if you add new entries above/below?
Awesome tips...thanks for sharing 👍
Thank you for watching =)
I was born in 52...that's 1952...AD...by the way, and never got into this while going through life. However, I've done a lot of traveling to see motor races, and put together a spreadsheet of race venues. It covers states in the US, provinces in Canada, and any other country, which is a total of 215 venues. I used the formulas method, because that's all I knew what to do. Any time I add a venue, it automatically adds to the current total of which country, and the Grand Total. It was fun to set up, and "feels" like I made a program, even though I know that's not what it is. But, that wasn't my first thought when you showed what "Ctrl+E" is for. My first thought was, how the hell do you remember all of these shortcuts?
Thank you for watching and I hope the video helped. This stuff is my daily job so I have built up muscle memory over time. I still remember when a friend showed me VLOOKUP years ago and I couldn't comprehend it. Now Excel is one of my favorite programs and I use it all the time to built reporting templates and make work easier. Thanks for watching and if you run into any questions send me a comment and I'll take a look. All the best,
I guess you never used UNIX. Talk about shortcuts.
Wow. Can’t wait to try this
Thank you!
That's an amazing shortcut. Had no idea, thanks.
With real world data, it often requires double checking and adjustment. Particularly when selecting a substring from a string. After several manual entries it usually gets the right way to do the task, but if you have multiple rows of data, you still have to check that out for everything right.
Well explained, thanks for sharing!
Thank you for the comment =)
Great 👍 thanks,
Love from India
Welcome to the channel, thank you for the support =)
Excellent video, Thank you for sharing your Knowledge!
Thanks for this tip. Its really good shortcut.
Holy crap THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING!!
That's incredible, I like formulas but this is very useful for quick and dirty tasks when I'm not going to use the workbook over and over.. This can be a real timesaver. thanks for searching
So now I will have to change my "activate developer options"-Key in my Excel sheet at work to another combination. I think, this can be very handy for me in some situations. Thanks!
This is a very and helpfull great tip and has many uses, increase productivity a lot.
I've gone through these comments and for the life of me cannot understand why there are so many fools that walk this earth.
Great video. Succinct, clear, audio/video was crystal clear, explanations spot on. I have to admit I saw this pop up on my home page and I was reluctant but came out pretty darn amazed. Thank you, great job.
Thank you for watching =)
Honestly, this is good. thank you thank you. I have subscribed
I love control e, didn’t know it worked for dates too. Might be useful one day.
The last is very good thx a lot 😊
Wow that tip is literally gold !!
Thank you for sharing this trick.
Really appreciate the comment =)
love this thing, save times. like excel just know what i want to do next. but sometime it did not give the right result, still need to double check.
Thank you for commenting =)
Whaaats??? Just great! There's something like that for "compare between columns"?
Thank you! Although I usually need the output to change when inputs are changed, added or deleted, this is another quick way to do something on the spot.
One pretty important missing piece of information i believe is from which office/excel version is this function implemented. In other words back to which version is it compatible.
happen to work or have worked at places that still have a very old version of excel. a place used office 97-03
my current place has office 2010 but i manage to uncouple my pc from the network controlled limits and installed the 2021...
Thanks! Do you have any videos on basic home budget or checkbook calculations? Thanks
Very cool. I love the shortcuts.
Good one, thank you for sharing!👌
Thank you so much!
Fantastic tip. I look forward to using this. How long had it been available in Excel?
Thank you for the comment, according to Microsoft since 2013. Have a great weekend!
That was cool, hope to try that soon. tHanks for the video