Note: This article was originally published in 2010. Some steps, commands, or software versions may have changed. Check the current Excel documentation for the latest information.

Q: I’ve seen spreadsheets where some of the cells are drop downs and allow you to select from a list of values the entry you want to make. How do you configure a cell in Excel to provide a dropdown? A: The function you are looking for is called “Data Validation”. Through this excel function you can create a drop down from different sources from a list you can type to a range you can define in the spreadsheet. There are many interesting features like the ability to not allow other values to be entered or displaying a warning message if they do. I found a very good tutorial online that explains this functionality at: (http://www.contextures.com/xldataval01.html). The most helpful tip I found out (the only one I didn’t know) is that you can press the F4 key and it will display a list of ranges available for use. This makes life so convenient specially when you can’t type things correctly and don’t know what went wrong.

Summary

You’ve successfully learned how do you get drop downs in excel to enter data in cells?. If you run into any issues, double-check the prerequisites and ensure your Excel environment is properly configured.