Auto fill Inconsistent Formulas?

[writemom]

In cell A13, I have the formula =U2
In cell A14, I have the formula =U4
I need A15 to =U6 and so on and so forth.

I have over 1800 rows and I really don't want to have to enter the formula for each cell. If I highlight A13 and A14 and use the auto fill, I end up with something like this:

=U2
=U4
=U4
=U6
=U6
=U8
=U8
etc.

 

[wsjackman]

try =indirect("U"&rows($A$13:A13)*2)
copy and paste down

 

[Yard]

Maybe

=INDEX($U:$U,(ROW()-ROW($A$13)+1)*2)

Where ROW($A$13) refers to the first cell in your list.

edit, wsjackman's row count is much neater

=INDEX($U:$U,ROWS(A$13:A13)*2)

in A13 and copied down

 

[writemom]

Thanks for responding to my problem so quickly! None of those formulas worked though. Let me be more specific about what I'm trying to do.

Column A needs to show dates. I want to auto fill the dates from some raw data that I've dumped into another column "U". Column A has 1847 rows. Column U has 3694 rows, because every other row has data that I don't want. I just want to grab the date out of every other row.

So what I want is for A13 to =U13 (I've started them even now), and A14 to =U15, A15=U17, and so on and so forth. Keep in mind that U13 might be 8/20/09, U15 might be 9/2/09, and U17 might be 9/4/09. In other words, the dates are not in a particular pattern.

I entered the suggested formulas in cell A13 and pulled down the formula to the rows below and got 1/0/00 for all cells, regardless of which formula I tried.

 

[Gerald Higgins]

Adapt wsjackman's like this, to allow for the step up to row 13

=indirect("u"&(rows($a$13:a13)*2)+12)

For me, this returns the correct dates from your sample data.

 

[Yard]

Yes, beacuse you said you wanted A13 to =U2. Now you want A13 to =U13.

Try this in A13

=INDEX($U:$U,ROW($U$13)+(ROWS(A$13:A13)-1)*2)

where U13 is the first value you want to reference and A$13 is the first cell containing this formula.

 

[writemom]

That worked perfectly! Thanks so much. I figured it was something that I had done. Of course I did not try to put the data back where I had it or I would have realized the problem. Thanks again.