The worksheet developer's toolbox. (macro for automating label generation) (1-2-3 Macros) (Tutorial)

Consider the common task of creating a worksheet table that lists the months of the year. It's conceptually simple but not so easy on the fingers. Try entering the 12 months in range AL..AI2 of a new worksheet, taking care to spell them correctly and to capitalize only the first letters. Notice how much you have to use the Shift and DownArrow keys.

If computers are so good at automating mundane tasks, why doesn't 1-2-3 have a command for generating months, days of the week, or series of labels like Period 1, Period 2, and so on? The routines shown in figures I through 4 are the components of a macro that makes it easy to populate ranges with such entries. The macro works in 1-2-3 Releases 2.2 and higher, as well as in 1-2-3for Windows.

If you use Release 2.2 or 2.3, use the Macro Library Manager add-in to put the routines in memory. That way they'll be available while you're building the worksheet, but they …