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Autonumbering will advance your numbered rows and keep them current, even if you should delete or add a row.

Unfortunately, MS Excel does not ship with an autonumbering feature like that found in MS Access, that increments a number each time you add a new row. In Excel 2003 and 2007 however, you can use the Row function to add your own autonumbering to a list.

Say you want to create a list of all of your school’s classes and their corresponding learning materials.

Follow the steps below to add autonumbering to the list:

• In A1, enter the formula below:

=TEXT(Row(A1),”000-000″)

• Enter the name of the first class in B1.
• Enter the learning material of the first class in C1.
• Copy cell A1 to A2.
• Enter the name of the second class in B2.
• Enter the learning material of the second class in C2.
• Select A1:C2.
• Go to Data | List and select Create List.

• In Excel 2007, press CTRL + T and then click OK.

Notice, that when you type the name of the next class in B3 and press Tab, MS Excel will automatically provide the next number for you.