The fill handle - Dates

When you need to enter a large number of cells with numerical or textual dates, Fill can help you out.

For instance, if you want to make a calendar of the month of December, you don’t need to enter all 31 days into individual cells manually. For a single date increase, enter one date into a cell and Fill it over. If you put in 12/1/2012, and carry it over 30 cells, Excel will enter 12/2/2012,12/3/2012, and so on down the line.

You can also do it by months - just enter 12/2012, click and drag, months will be filled in for year. They’ll even carry over into new years when appropriate.

To do this by year, you’ll need 2 cells - one with the first year, one with the second, such as 2008 followed by 2009. Fill it in with both cells and the subsequent years will be added to your spreadsheet.