Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Excel in Microsoft 365. If you are using an earlier version (Excel 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Excel, click here: AutoFilling with Weekdays.

AutoFilling with Weekdays

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated September 19, 2022)
This tip applies to Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Excel in Microsoft 365


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The AutoFill feature of Excel is very handy, allowing you to automatically fill cells with all sorts of information, based on the content of cells you select. For instance, if you fill two cells with the words "Monday" and "Tuesday," and then select those cells, you can drag the AutoFill handle to fill other cells with other days of the week.

What if you want to only fill cells with the workdays, Monday through Friday? This is easy to do if you make one small change in how you use the AutoFill handle. Instead of clicking and dragging it with the left mouse button, click and drag with the right mouse button.

When you release the button, a Context menu appears. Two of the options on the menu are "Fill Days" and "Fill Weekdays." If you choose Fill Days, then the range is filled with the names of the seven days of the week, the same as if you had used the left mouse button to do the AutoFill. The other option, Fill Weekdays, fills the range with the names of only the five days of the week, Monday through Friday.

ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (3594) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Excel in Microsoft 365. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Excel here: AutoFilling with Weekdays.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

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What is two more than 4?

2018-09-30 02:43:54

Michael (Micky) Avidan

@John Fistere'

One needs no formula to achieve what you have just presented.

Try the suggestion shown in the following picture.

(see Figure 1 below)
--------------------
Micky Avidan

Figure 1. 


2018-09-30 00:35:33

John Fistere

I was very glad to learn about the options of the AutoFill function, dragging with the right button. Thank you.

Regarding the original purpose of the hint, to list weekday names, I would think you would usually want the actual dates in an adjacent or nearby column. It seems more logical to start with the dates copied down as you wish, and then add the Weekday name with the following formula:

=IF(ISNUMBER(B1),CHOOSE(WEEKDAY(B1),"Sunday","Monday","Tuesday","Wednesday","Thursday","Friday","Saturday"),"")

Paste this formula into cell A1 of your worksheet, then copy and paste it to the immediate left of the first date in your column of dates and then do a normal AutoFill copy down the column.

You can, of course, change the full day names to "Sun",Mon", etc.


John Fistere


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