Excel - Drop Down List

Ever wish that you didn't have to type out the same thing over and over again? Well you can save time by using Excel's drop down list!

Drop Down Preparation

Imagine that we are creating an Excel spreadsheet to document our purchases from the grocery store. For each purchase we want to mark down the name of the food and the type of the food.

The way a drop down list works in Excel is that it takes values from some place on your spreadsheet and uses them to populate the options in the list. Lucky for us, the type of food is a perfect opportunity to use a drop down list!

In cells A1 through A7 enter the type of food that will be used for the drop down list.

Creating a Drop Down List

Now that we have a source for our drop down list, we can create a begin to create our drop down.

1. Select cells D2 though D20 (We will be creating a drown down list for each cell in this range)
   
   
2. Click the Data menu and select Validation
3. Choose List from the Allow drop down menu
   
   
4. Click the Source button that appears to the right of the textfield
   
   
5. Select our source cells A1 though A7
   
   
6. Press Enter and Click OK

Testing Your Drop Down

All of your cells in the Type column should now have a drop down list. To test to see if your drop down works, click on cell D2 and then click on the downward facing arrow and see if all the types of food are available.

This message has been posted on HMGoogleGroup by: Andy Says
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