(If you are new to Excel Tables and would like to learn how to create and work with Excel Table take a look 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? Let’s take a look!Īdding 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:Ī 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 see 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.

Create a drop down list in excel