Mac Forum / Applications / Excel / August 2005

Product: Microsoft Excel for Mac 2004 (v. 11.1)

Problem: Although "fill down" and "fill right" work as expected in most
spreadsheets, I have been working in one recently where they don't. For
example, I have a column (call it A) with about 120 rows of names. In
the next column, I insert the formula =RIGHT(A1,5). B1 now contains the
rightmost 5 characters of the name in A1. I then fill down to the
bottom of the column. All the cells in B now contain the same
characters as appear in B1. This, despite the fact that that the
formulas in the cells below B1 contain the right references (i.e., B2
contains "=RIGHT(A2,5)").

I can fix this by either:

(a) Entering each cell and pressing return, or
(b) Saving the workbook

In either case, the correct values appear in the filled cells.

Any suggestions?

Thanks.