It's a bit confusing for a novice, such as myself. But, you are basically
saying that it is working correctly and there basically isn't anything I can
do to change it, right? ;)

"Joerg" wrote:

Here is what MS Help says:

-Excel completes an entry only when the insertion point is at the end of the
current cell contents.

-Excel bases the list of potential AutoComplete entries on the column that
contains the active cell (active cell: The selected cell in which data is
entered when you begin typing. Only one cell is active at a time. The active
cell is bounded by a heavy border.). Entries that are repeated within a row
are not automatically completed

Means: Excel picks only values from the active column. If the adjacent
columns are empty or not only makes a difference if you have blank cells in
your active column. Entries in adjacent columns can thus close the gap
created by blank cells in your active column.

Example: If you have data in A1:A10 and you try to enter text into A11, the
texts in A1:A10 will considered (the current area = data area *completely*
surrounded by blank cells, is A1:A10). If you now delete A5, only texts of
A5:A10 will be considered (your new current area is A5:A10) . Now enter a
value into B5. This makes A1:B10 your new current area of which the column
A1:A10 will be considered (=it works as in the first case, when you had no
empy cell in your active column).

I hope this makes sense.

Joerg





"Jason" wrote in message
...
Yes, that is how it should work. But, having an empty column seems to
cause
that to not happen. I'm using Excel 2007 (Office 2007). I'm not 100%
sure
if this happened in earlier versions of Excel for me. But, it does work
correctly as long as I don't have any spaces between columns...

Any suggestions?

"Joerg" wrote:

I can't see where Excel is not correct. It just waits with its suggestion
until there is no ambiguity left. If the only text in your column
starting
with letter B is 'Blaa', then Excel offers 'Blaa' after entering just a
B.
If you have another entry in your list such as 'Blaa foo', Excel waits
until
you have entered 'Blaa ' (with a trailing space) to offer 'Blaa foo'.
Makes sense to me. The space has no effect the other data in the
column...at
least in Excel2003.

Joerg

"Jason" wrote in message
...
Help states: "completes text entries that you start to type in a column
of
data ? if the first few letters that you type match an existing entry
in
that
column."

But, if I have a single space between entries in the column, excel
"forgets"
all of the data in the column and doesn't offer any suggetions. Is
there
any
way to correct this?