How do you make it stop increasing numbers/letters automatically???

Question

If I want to drag up or down to copy text or numbers from one cell to another the program automatically increases the number by one or the letter by the next letter. Drag 1 and it increases the next entry to 2, drag a and it changes the next letter to b. How do you stop it from doing this?
Thanks

Answer 1

Your value is incrementing because it's a member of the first set as described in my post: "text strings ending in a number"
You can prevent the increment by any of the following actions:
Enter "11x14" (no quotes) in each of the top two cells. Select both, then drag the Fill control to fill down.
Enter ="11x14" (with the quotes) in the top cell of the column. Fill down.
Enter " 11x14 " (no quotes, but do include the space after 14 if the cells will have text aligned left, or both spaces if the cells will have text centered) in the top cell. Fill Down
Include the inch symbols in your entry in the first cell: 11"x14"  Fill down.
This sets a zero increment. The value still increments, but the increment is zero.
Each value is set by the equation. When all are set, you may find the table's speed improves if you then Copy the whole column, then go Edit > Paste Values to eliminate the need to constantly recalculate the formulas.
Seemed like something that should work (it's the same technique as used in #4), but the spaces are stripped when the value is filled into the next row, even if non-breaking spaces (option-space) are used. Pity.
This works as the text string no longer ends with a number. Several other characters could be used, but not a space, a period ('decimal'), or anything else that would let Numbers interpret the end f his text string as a number.
With 25 000 rows to fill, I would not use the Fill control to do the filling. It's going to get awfully slow and tedious.
Fortunately, it's not the only method to fill a column with the same value.
With #2 or #4, you can:
Enter the value in the first cell.
Click on the column reference tab to select the entire column.
Commmand-click on any cells above the one in which you put the value to remove them, one at a time, from the selection.
With the cell containing the value and all cells below it selected, go Insert > Fill > Fill Down.
for #2 only, with all cells now containing the formula still selected, Copy
Go Edit > Paste Values
The above steps won't work with #1, and Fill Down fills only the contents of the cell at the top of the column, and the value will increment as it's filled.
For #1, #2 or #4:
Enter the value in the first two cells.
Select both cells and Copy
Click on the column reference tab to select the entire column.
Commmand-click on any cells above the one in which you put the value to remove them, one at a time, from the selection.
With the two cells containing the value and all cells below them selected, Paste.
For #2, continue with the two extra steps above.
"Let's see 14" + 26037" =... Well surely you can see how expensive the frame is going to be?"
The frame? The mat itself is going to be expensive enough. I've never seen a piece of mat material over 650 metres long!
One more thing...
Before you commit to doing this with Numbers, I'd suggest making a dummy table with the number of rows of data you expect to reach.
The easiest and most efficient way to do that is to
fill in one full row of data, Then fill that down to the end of your initial table.
then..
Click on a cell in the bottom row, Select All and Copy.
Add a row, click in it's first cell, Paste
Scroll to the bottom of the table.
Repeat the above three steps until you have about 20 000 rows.
Now check the speed of data entry as you add another 'real' record to the table..
Numbers tends to be pretty pokey with large tables, especially if those tables include (multiple) Header rows and columns or Footer rows.
Better to find out if you can live with it before you've entered a few thousand records.
Now if I can find my spear and magic helmet, I'm off in search of that wascally wabbit.
Wegards,
Bawwy