If you're adventurous, and want to explore the power of the HP Palmtops, this sidebar shows you how to create a System Macro that automates the process of filling in the names of the months. This is a handy macro, if you need to perform this kind of operation repeatedly. On the other hand, if you only need to do the operation one or two times, you can ignore the macro. It's clever but takes more time to key in and debug than it takes to type in the information.
/df{BackSp}.{Down}{Down}{Down}{Down} {Down}{Down}{Down}{Down}{Down}{Down} {Down}{Enter}1{Enter}32{Enter}{Enter} /rfd3{End}{Down}{Enter}{Copy}.{End}{Down} {Enter}{Paste}/rs{BackSp}.{End}{Down} {Enter}xx{Esc}-00{Enter}lr{Enter} a{End}{Up}/rs{BackSp}.{End}{Down}{Enter} x{Esc} {Enter}lr{Enter}a{End}{Up}
The System Macro issues a series of 1-2-3 commands. It could almost be a 1-2-3 macro except that it uses the copy and paste command that are peculiar to the HP Palmtops. Copy and Paste can't be incorporated in a 1-2-3 macro. On the HP 95LX substitute {CtrlF2} and {Ctrl-F4} for {Copy} and {Paste}.
The macro starts with the Data Fill command. It creates a range of 12 cells and fills the range with numbers that Start with 1 and Increase by 32. The macro Formats the Range with Date 3 formatting. This produces fields that look like Jan-00, Feb-00, etc. Next, the range is Copied and Pasted back onto itself. This converts the fields to pure text, devoid of any numbers. The macro then uses the Range Search command to look for "-00" and Replaces All occurrences of this with nothing. Finally, it does another search and replace operation, looking for spaces and replacing them with nothing.
The extra commands in the macro allow month names to begin in any cell of the worksheet. If you need to put the names in a row instead of a column, you can use the (MENU) Range Transpose command.