How can I make fill down command NOT increment values?

Question

Hi,
Is there anyway I can get the fill down command to insert the same value in each cell, rather than filling in an increasing series. It works fine for plain numbers (i.e. if I fill down from a cell containing "1", it gives a column with every cell containing "1").
However, for dates and mixtures of text and numbers it always increments the values - example below:
Doing fill down from cells containing:
1 18 Mar 2009 abc100
Gives:
1 18 Mar 2009 abc100
1 19 Mar 2009 abc101
1 20 Mar 2009 abc102
1 21 Mar 2009 abc103
1 22 Mar 2009 abc104
1 23 Mar 2009 abc105
etc...
How can I keep the dates and "abc100" the same in the filled cells?
Thanks for any help!
Jo

Answer 1

I have no idea how the designers of Numbers determined when to fill down identical values versus incrementing the values. For instance, "abc100" increments in a fill down while "100" and "abc" do not. I, personally, see nothing special about "abc100" that indicates a pattern.
And you are correct that Fill Down is different than dragging the circle. Fill down takes whatever is in the top cell and fills down (either incrementing or not, depending on whatever the rule is the designers chose) while overwriting whatever was in the lower cells. Dragging the circle of a box that covers 2 or more cells fills down from the bottom of the box and it looks for patterns, not just simple increments.
No problem on the search. It isn't always easy to find what you are looking for. I just happened to remember that thread.