When it comes to office jobs, few skills are as beneficial as Microsoft Excel. Mastering this ubiquitous tool is like having the ultimate transferable skill on your resume. Excel has almost limitless potential. Today were going to discuss how to create a drop down list in Excel.
Why would you want a drop down list? While the answer to that will depend on your situation, drop down lists are particularly helpful for creating surveys, polls, and web forms. Making a drop down list in Excel is actually pretty simple, as the option can be found in the Data Validation tool. Unfortunately, its pretty hard to find even if its easy to do once you have the know-how.
Related: Heres how to merge cells in Excel
To make a drop down list youll need two elements:
- A list of the items that will go into your drop down.
- A data entry cell.
While the individual steps may vary depending on what version of Excel youre using, the general process remains about the same. So lets jump in.
1. First create the list. In this example we used cells A1 through A4. Of course where you put things is pretty flexible, such as if you want to use A1 through D1, or even if you want to put the lists data into a different sheet in the project.
2. Next youll go up to the menu and click Data > Data Validation.
3. A new box will show up. Choose List from the Allow option.
4. Next, click Source control and you can then drag and highlight the cells you filled with your list in step 1. You can also manually enter the cells, if you prefer [=$A$1:$A$4].
Check the in-cell dropdown option. If you uncheck this it wont present the actual drop-down list. Hit Ok.
5. You can now add the drop-down list into multiple cells. Simply select the rage of data input cells. It even works for non-contiguous cells. Just hold the Shift key down while clicking.
And thats it! Now you know how to create a drop down list in Excel. As you can see, it wasnt that hard but Microsoft makes things a bit more complicated by burying a lot of functions into its complex menu system. Want to learn even more about Excel? The Excel Certification Bundle could be the perfect fit. The course contains $1,600 worth of trainingin one convenient package. Best of all, the temporary price drop brings the whole bundle down to only $39.
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