How to Create a Drop-Down List in Excel
In this Excel tutorial, you can learn how in easy way create a drop-down list in Excel.
Table of Contents
What is a drop-down list?
A drop-down allows you to more easily enter the cell, pre-selected words or numbers. Drop-down list is also useful if you want to impose certain content entering the cell. Sometimes you want all the cells in the column were content YES or NO.
In Excel, drop-down lists can be used to provide a list of options for a specific cell or range of cells, making it easy to enter data in a consistent and error-free manner.
You will create a drop-down list, where you will be able to choose the brand of the car. Here is the table prepared for car brands:
Drop-down list that you create will look like this:
As you can see we have a choice among all brands of cars from the table. How to do it?
How to create a drop-down list?
Start from the table. First, select all brands of cars.
Choose a name for this data. Let it be ‘Cars’. Enter the name to the name field and confirm with Enter button.
Now select the cell (or cells), which has a drop-down list to appear. Go to the Data tab on the ribbon and press Data Validation button. Drop-down lists are useful for ensuring consistent and error-free data entry by providing a predefined list of options for a specific cell or range of cells.
A dialog box appears. Select ‘List’ and type the name of our range of cells after the = sign. In our example it is =Cars.
Check the “In-cell dropdown” box if you want to display the drop-down arrow in the cell.
Drop-down list is ready.
You can now test the drop-down list by clicking on the cell with the drop-down arrow and selecting one of the available options.
Input message
An input message is a helpful feature in Excel that allows you to provide users with additional information about the data that should be entered into a particular cell. Here’s how to create an input message for a drop-down list in Excel:
- In the “Input Message” tab of the “Data Validation” dialog box, check the “Show input message when cell is selected” box.
- Enter a title and input message in the “Title” and “Input message” fields, respectively. These will be displayed in a small pop-up window when the user selects the cell.
Now, when the user selects the cell with the drop-down list, a pop-up window will appear displaying the title and input message you entered.
This can provide helpful guidance to the user about what data should be entered into the cell, and can reduce the risk of errors or confusion.
Error alert
Creating an error alert for a drop-down list in Excel can help prevent users from entering invalid data into a cell.
The user can then correct their input or click “Cancel” to close the dialog box and return to the cell.
This helps ensure that only valid data is entered into the cell, reducing the risk of errors and inconsistencies in your Excel worksheet.
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