Pick a value already in the column
Alt↓Entry & fillA free dropdown of everything you've already typed, with no setup at all.
Difficulty
1What it does
Stand in an empty cell under a column of text and press Alt + ↓. Excel offers a list of every value already in that column, and picking one enters it exactly. No Data Validation, no source range, nothing to maintain — it just reads the column above. It's the difference between an account column with one spelling and one with four, and it costs nothing to start using today.
2The shortcut
- 1Click the first empty cell directly below a column of text entries.
- 2Press
Alt + ↓. - 3Arrow to the value you want and press
Enter.
3Before → after
Press the shortcut to play it on a sample sheet.
No setup, no validation list — it just reads the column above
| A — Vendor | B — Category | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Staples | Office supplies |
| 2 | Adobe | Software |
| 3 | Delta | Travel |
| 4 | Figma | Software |
| 5 | Staples | Office supplies |
| 6 | Notion |
Stand in the empty cell under a column of text and press Alt + ↓.
4When you use it
- Keep vendor and account names consistent while coding transactions.
- Enter a department without reaching for the mouse or a validation list.
- Check what spellings a column already contains — the list is the audit.
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