Create a drop down list in excel how to#

To add list validation to Excel Cells firstly select the range of cells that the validation list is to be available for, then select Data Validation. The Data ribbon offers a Data Validation option on the Data Tools section:Д¬licking on the arrow to the right of the Data Validation option displays the following options:

It is important that the list is formatted as a table as we want newly added countries to be added to the validation list automatically. The Table Tools Design Ribbon is selected and on the top left of the ribbon we can see that the selected table is called Countries. This is because we have created a table from cells C1 to C8. If we click in any cell in the Sales Territory Country column (Column C) we will see that the Table Tools Design Ribbon is available. You can see that there is no Table Tools Design Ribbon available when we click in one of the Customer Type cells. Note that Column I contains the Customer Type valid values, they have not been organised as a вЂњ TableвЂќ. In the sample workbook we are using here we have a worksheet dedicated to tables used for drop down lists.

Create a drop down list in excel how to#

(If you are new to Excel Tables and would like to learn how to create and work with Excel Table take a lookВ at this PTR blog article) The first step is to create a table containing the list of possible values for the drop down. So, how do we achieve all this? LetвЂ™s take a look!ДЄdding a Validation List Rule To A Range of Cells It is also possible to provide help text that is displayed as soon as a user moves into a country cell: If an incorrect value is entered the following dialog pops up:ДЄ more helpful message can be specified that indicates more clearly what the validation requirement is. It is perfectly OK to enter text into the Country cell manually, but the resulting value must match one of those list in the drop down list. In the following screen shot we can see that Australia was selected. We can now use the arrow keys to highlight the country we wish to select and then hit return or click on the left mouse button. We can see that a drop down list of countries is available when we click in one of the Country cells. In the following example we can seeВ a drop list that a user can choose from when populating a Country column value. This is surprisingly easy in Excel and requires no clever VBA code!

When you design an Excel workbook for users other than yourself to use you may find that it is helpful to provide drop down lists for some column values such as Status Codes, Categories, Response Codes, etc.