Drop-down lists is a feature of Excel that enables you to have users select an option from a predetermined list instead of them typing their own values.
It’s like a lot of forms you see around the web where you can choose between different options from a list.
Creating a dropdown list in Excel
1. Open an Excel workbook.
2.Create a second sheet by clicking on the +
sign near the bottom left-corner in Excel.

3. Type the options you want to have in the Drop-down list
on the second sheet.

4. Go back to the first sheet by clicking Sheet1
near the bottom-left corner in Excel

5. Select cell B1 on the first sheet. Note that this can be any cell.
6. Click on the Data
tab.

7. Click Data Validation
, which is located in the Data Tools
section of the ribbon.

The Data Validation
dialog box will open.
8. In the Allow
box select the option List
.

9. In the same Data Validation dialogue box click the button located on the far-right of the Source
text box.

10. Manually select the range of data you want to include in your Drop-down list
and afterwards click OK
.


And there you go, you created your own dropdown list in Excel! This is what you’ll see:

Note that if you do not want users to be able to access the data on Sheet2
, you can hide the sheet. In order to do this, right click the Sheet2
tab and click Hide
.

Dropdown list directly into the data validation pane
Instead of typing the options into Sheet2
, it is also possible to insert the items directly into the Source
text box.

As always: any questions, let me know in the comments below:
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