{"id":4158,"date":"2016-09-08T19:38:15","date_gmt":"2016-09-08T17:38:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/?p=4158"},"modified":"2024-02-06T16:17:51","modified_gmt":"2024-02-06T15:17:51","slug":"add-hyphens-serial-numbers-using-excel-flash-fill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/blog\/add-hyphens-serial-numbers-using-excel-flash-fill\/","title":{"rendered":"Add Hyphens To Serial Numbers Using Excel Flash Fill"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Excel Flash Fill<\/strong>\u00a0is a new feature that was introduced in <strong>Excel 2013<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Flash Fill allows you to combine, extract, move &amp; transform data that belongs in one column, into a new column.<\/p>\n<p>One of the cool uses of\u00a0<strong>Flash Fill\u00a0<\/strong>is formatting\u00a0numbers. \u00a0In our example below, we are going to add hyphens within our serial numbers!<\/p>\n<div class=\"after-post-box\">\n<p><iframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/08gr6Cu2KJo?rel=0 \" width=\"800\" height=\"400\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><span data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" style=\"display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">\ufeff<\/span><\/iframe><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/c\/MyExcelOnlinecomtutorials?sub_confirmation=1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignmiddle wp-image-111468 size-full\" style=\"vertical-align: middle;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/1.yt_.png\" alt=\"\" title=\"\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"line-two\"><a class=\"IRPP_minimalist icon-download button small\" href=\"https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/Flash-Fill-Formatting.xlsx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" data-leadbox=\"https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/Flash-Fill-Formatting.xlsx\" data-leadbox-id=\"147284833f72a2:12f08263ab46dc\"><span class=\"ctaText px-3 text-capitalize\"> download excel workbook <i class=\"fa fa-download\"><\/i><\/span><span class=\"postTitle px-3\">Flash-Fill-Formatting.xlsx<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>To demonstrate the power of Excel&#8217;s Flash Fill, we will start off with this table of data we need to apply\u00a0our\u00a0formatting on:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Flash-Fill-Formatting-01.png\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"Add Hyphens To Serial Numbers Using Excel Flash Fill\"  class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-4163\" src=\"https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Flash-Fill-Formatting-01.png\" alt=\"Add Hyphens To Serial Numbers Using Excel Flash Fill\" width=\"265\" height=\"158\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>STEP 1<\/strong>:<\/span> Type<em><strong> 123-45-6789<\/strong>\u00a0<\/em>as the first entry in the\u00a0<strong>Formatted SSN<\/strong> column.<strong> \u00a0<\/strong>We also want the rest of the SSNs to be formatted this way.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Flash-Fill-Formatting-02.png\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"Add Hyphens To Serial Numbers Using Excel Flash Fill\"  class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-4164\" src=\"https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Flash-Fill-Formatting-02.png\" alt=\"Add Hyphens To Serial Numbers Using Excel Flash Fill\" width=\"264\" height=\"160\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>STEP 2<\/strong>:<\/span>\u00a0In the second entry, once you type the first number\u00a0<strong>4<\/strong>\u00a0of\u00a0<strong>478923744<\/strong><em>,\u00a0<\/em>Excel will auto-suggest to <strong>Flash Fill<\/strong> the rest of the <strong>Formatted SSN<\/strong> column.<\/p>\n<p>Excel is smart enough\u00a0to infer that you are trying to apply this formatting.<\/p>\n<p>If the Flash Fill looks good, press\u00a0<strong>Enter.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Flash-Fill-Formatting-03.png\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"Add Hyphens To Serial Numbers Using Excel Flash Fill\"  class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-4165\" src=\"https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Flash-Fill-Formatting-03.png\" alt=\"Add Hyphens To Serial Numbers Using Excel Flash Fill\" width=\"269\" height=\"156\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>*** IMPORTANT:<\/strong> <\/span>If Flash Fill doesnt\u2019 start automatically in your selected cell when you type in data that matches a pattern, you will need to <strong>start Flash Fill manually<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>This is done by clicking on <strong>Data &gt; Flash Fill<\/strong> or by pressing the Flash Fill keyboard <a class=\"wpil_keyword_link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/blog\/333-excel-shortcuts-for-windows-and-mac\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"shortcut\" data-wpil-keyword-link=\"linked\">shortcut<\/a>\u00a0<strong>CTRL+E<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/flash-fill-excel-2013.png\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"Extract Numbers Using Flash Fill In Excel\"  class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-4289\" src=\"https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/flash-fill-excel-2013.png\" sizes=\"(max-width: 554px) 100vw, 554px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/flash-fill-excel-2013.png 554w, https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/flash-fill-excel-2013-300x66.png 300w\" alt=\"Extract Numbers Using Flash Fill In Excel\" width=\"554\" height=\"122\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>STEP 3: <\/strong><\/span>What is very impressive is Excel was able to apply the same formatting to the rest of the table\u00a0<strong>without the use of a single <a class=\"wpil_keyword_link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/blog\/top-excel-formulas-function-examples-to-get-better-at-microsoft-excel\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"formula\" data-wpil-keyword-link=\"linked\">formula<\/a>!<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Flash-Fill-Formatting-04.png\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"Add Hyphens To Serial Numbers Using Excel Flash Fill\"  class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-4166\" src=\"https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Flash-Fill-Formatting-04.png\" alt=\"Add Hyphens To Serial Numbers Using Excel Flash Fill\" width=\"289\" height=\"157\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/myexcelonline.leadpages.co\/power-query-data-cleansing-int916\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"Add Hyphens To Serial Numbers Using Excel Flash Fill\"  class=\"alignnone wp-image-4472 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/OzTraining_728x90.jpg\" alt=\"Add Hyphens To Serial Numbers Using Excel Flash Fill\" width=\"728\" height=\"90\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/OzTraining_728x90.jpg 728w, https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/OzTraining_728x90-300x37.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 728px) 100vw, 728px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; Excel Flash Fill\u00a0is a new feature that was introduced in Excel 2013. Flash Fill allows you to combine, extract, move &amp; transform data that belongs in one column, into a new column. One of the cool uses of\u00a0Flash Fill\u00a0is formatting\u00a0numbers. \u00a0In our example below, we are going to add hyphens within our serial numbers! [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17680,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"cos_headline_score":0,"cos_seo_score":0,"cos_headline_text":"","cos_headline_has_been_analyzed":false,"cos_last_analyzed_headline":[],"om_disable_all_campaigns":false},"categories":[6,41],"tags":[88,162],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4158"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4158\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myexcelonline.com\/meo-staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}