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Helen Bradley - MS Office Tips, Tricks and Tutorials

I'm a lifestyle journalist and I've been writing about office productivity software for a long time. Here you'll find handy hints, tips, tricks, techniques and tutorials on using software as diverse as Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Outlook, Access and Publisher from Microsoft and other applications that I love. My publishing credits include PC Magazine, Windows XP mag, CNet, PC User mag, SmallbusinessComputing.com, Winplanet and Sydney Morning Herald.

Thursday, November 5, 2009

Excel 2007- In Cell Dropdown List


When you need to enter data from a small subset of entries into a range in Excel 2007 you can do it more easily using a custom designed dropdown list.

To configure a dropdown list in a cell type the list of items to use in a single column in a spare sheet in the workbook.

Select these cells and choose the Formulas tab Define Name, type DataForList as the name in the dialog, set the scope to Workbook and click Ok.

Switch to the sheet where you want to add your dropdown list to some cells, select the cells that should display a list of data to choose from and choose Data tab > Data Validation > Settings tab.

From the Allow: dropdown list choose List and, in the Source area, type =DataForList and click Ok.

Now, whenever you click a cell in this range you’ll see a dropdown list appear from which you can choose a list entry for that cell.

If you're using Excel 2003, here is a link to an earlier post explaining how to do this in Excel 2003:

Automatic cell entries in Excel 2003
http://www.projectwoman.com/labels/validation.html

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