Fill patterned text with Smart Fill in WPS Spreadsheet

Quick answer: Enter one or two examples in an adjacent output column, select the intended output range, and choose Home > Fill > Smart Fill. Review every result against a written rule. Pattern recognition is assistance, not validation, and it should not be treated as a live formula.

Prerequisites and interface

Use the Windows WPS Sheets editing interface described in the Docs Center, with a disposable copy of your data and an empty destination column. The documentation calls this command Smart Fill. Some Academy material calls the sample-driven fill workflow Flash Fill; this page follows the Windows Smart Fill menu rather than combining the two interfaces. The source does not identify an installed numeric build. These are not browser or mobile instructions.

The example extracts a product’s color from a synthetic label. It intentionally includes a multiword exception, because a convincing first row does not prove a correct transformation.

Prepare the rule and the input

Put Label in A1 and Color in B1. Enter the following source strings in A2:A7. Leave B2:B7 empty initially.

Cell	Label	Required color
A2	P101 - Blue	Blue
A3	P102 - Green	Green
A4	P103 - Red	Red
A5	P104 - Dark Blue	Dark Blue
A6	P105 - Gold	Gold
A7	P106 - White	White

The rule is: retain everything after the separator -, preserving spaces inside the color name. The third column above is your answer key, not another column to fill into the practice worksheet. Keep the product IDs and original labels untouched so each result remains traceable to its source.

Generate the output

1. Type Blue in B2 and Green in B3. These are examples, not formulas.
2. Select B2:B7. Confirm you are selecting the destination column, not the original labels.
3. Choose Home > Fill > Smart Fill. The documented shortcut alternative is Ctrl+E after selecting a sample or target range.
4. Wait for the remaining cells to fill. Compare B2:B7 with the answer key, cell by cell.
5. Pay particular attention to B5: Blue alone is wrong; Dark Blue is required. Also reject a retained hyphen, product ID, unexpected leading space, or missing result.
6. Correct any incorrect output manually. If several rows are wrong, undo the fill, clarify the sample results and run it again. Keep the source column intact while experimenting.

Successful completion means six reviewed output values, not merely six nonblank cells. For a larger real dataset, scan distinct input patterns first, then check all exceptions before relying on the result downstream. A sample review alone cannot certify every irregular row.

Check what happens after an edit

Change A6 to P105 - Silver. The required B6 value is now Silver. Inspect B6 rather than assuming the earlier fill tracks source changes. If it still says Gold, correct it or rerun the operation with suitable examples and recheck the entire output range.

This is an important difference from designing a formula-driven column: you are validating generated text at a point in time. If the source is frequently revised, keep a clear review step before each export or handoff. Save the workbook after checking, reopen it, and compare the six source/output pairs again.

Troubleshooting

If nothing fills, confirm that you supplied an example and selected the intended output cells. If Ctrl+E is intercepted by another program, use the menu entry. If Smart Fill is absent, confirm you are in the spreadsheet editing view, not another WPS component, before assuming the feature is unavailable in your edition.

If a label has no separator or contains multiple separators, decide what the correct output should mean before rerunning. Do not force ambiguous data into the pattern or overwrite the original to make the result look consistent.

Related guides

For identifiers that must remain text, see preserve long tracking IDs and leading zeros. If imported records have not split into fields, first use fix a CSV that opens in one column.

Official references

• WPS Docs Center: Smart Fill on Windows (source captured 2026-10-20).