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98 Data Entry 101
5. Click the Add button to add your new AutoCorrect replacement to the
list of automated replacements.
6. Click the OK button to close the AutoCorrect dialog box.
Figure 1-7:
You can add your own automated replace- ments to the AutoCorrect tab.
You can use the AutoCorrect feature to automatically replace favorite abbre- viations with full text, as well as to clean up all your personal typing mis- takes. For example, if you have a client with the name Great Lakes Securities, and you enter this client’s name in countless spreadsheets that you create, you can make an AutoCorrect entry so that Excel automatically replaces
the abbreviation gls with Great Lakes Securities. Of course, after you use AutoCorrect to enter Great Lakes Securities in your first cell by typing gls, the AutoComplete feature kicks in, so the next time you type the g of gls to enter the client’s name in another cell, it fills in the rest of the name, leaving you with nothing to do but complete the entry.
Keep in mind that AutoCorrect is not a replacement for Excel’s spelling checker. You should still spell check your spreadsheet before sending it out because the spelling checker finds all those uncommon typos that haven’t been automatically corrected for you. (See Book II, Chapter 3 for details.)
Constraining data entry to a cell range
One of the most efficient ways to enter data into a new table in your spread- sheet is to preselect the empty cells where the data entries need to be made and then enter the data into the selected range. Of course, this trick only works if you know ahead of time how many columns and rows the new table requires.