Repeating alphabetical letters on excel for wire numbers

**joelwalker71** · 09-29-2009, 05:00 PM

Hi there,
At my place of work we order wire numbers on Excel for convenience.
Some of out wire numbers go as follow:
1K101
1K102.... ect. so its easy to drag them down to follow on.

However some wire numbers go as follows:
1E59A
1E59B
1E59C..... ect.

So my question is, is it possible to highlight and drag to cell down to make the last letter follows through the alphabet?

Would be greatly appreciated as we order thousands every week.

Thanks Alot,
Joel

**teylyn** · 09-29-2009, 05:16 PM

Hi,

my suggestion is to use a multi step process, like this:

First, go Tools - Options - custom lists tab and add a new list with uppercase letters of the alphabet.
Then, in an empty sheet, put the first part of the code into a cell A1, e.g.
1E59
copy this down 26 rows
in B1 put A
in B2 put B
in B3 put C

use the fill handle to fill this down 26 rows. With the new list defined, this should now work.

Now you can create a formula like this in C1

=A1 &B1

copy down the list

Select the newly created codes, copy them and use Paste Special - Values to paste them where you need to use them

Of course, once you have the codes in an excel table, you could set up a new list for each code, so they would be re-usable. You can import any list into the Custom Lists tab with the Import button.

hth