Wow. thanks for the quick and clearly knowledgeable response.
So here goes my question:
Waaaay back, when I used the Xywrite program (i am a retired journalist) the program allowed me to save/paste a string of text that i was using repeatedly.
so for example, rather than trying to figure out how to spell Libya's Ghaddafy every time I mentioned him, I could define the text "Ghaddafy," then type something like ctrl+alt G to save it. Then whenerver I needed to type it again I would type something like control+g or alt+g and the program would insert Ghaddafy at the cursor position.
Now for the reason I am asking: I need this same exact function for XLS
I am typing up a list of about 14,000 handwritten names of people, lilsted in no particular order.
Of course many are repetitive -- John, Mary, George, Peter, Jane, etc.
so i need to figure out a way to define John, click on something like alt+ctrl J to save it to the J function so that from then on anytime I need to type John I can type something like ctrl+j and John fills in.
Macros are not good for this because JOHN would be assigned to a specific cell -- and it changes everything if the cell changes (one xls sheet is added to another and r5c6 becomes r34c34.
a bit complicated, but i've tried to be clear.
million thanks for any assistance at all.