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How to populate Combo Box with data of Named Range in Excel?

Author Siluvia Last modified

You can specify a Combo box (ActiveX Control) with data of a certain range by adding the range into the ListFillRange properties of the combo box. But do you know how to populate a Combo box with data of a named range in Excel? For example, you have named a range of cells in your worksheet, and now, need to specify this range name into a Combo box. When selecting the range name in one combo box, all cell values in this named range will be populated in another Combo box automatically. This article will introduce a VBA method to solve this problem.

Populate Combo box with data of a named range with VBA code

Populate Combo box with data of a named range with VBA code

Please do as follows to populate Combo box with data of a named range in Excel.

1. Please select the whole headers (in this case, I select A1:E1) in your worksheet, and then type a name into the Name Box as below screenshot shown.

create a range name for the row header

2. Select each column data except its header, and then name the column separately in the Name Box. See screenshot:

In this case, I named range A2:A8, B2:B8, C2:C8, D2:D8 and E2:E8 as Date, Shop, Items, Sales and Weekday separately.

create a range name for each column

3. Then insert a Combo box by clicking Developer > Insert > Combo Box (ActiveX Control). See screenshot:

click Developer > Insert > Combo Box

4. Repeat the step 3 to insert another Combo box into the worksheet.

insert another Combo box

5. Right-click the sheet tab, and then click View Code from the context menu. See screenshot:

click View Code from the context menu

6. In the opening Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications window, please copy and paste below VBA code into the Code window.

VBA code: Populate Combo box with data of a named range

Private Sub ComboBox1_Change()
'Updated by Extendoffice 2018/1/30
    Dim xRg As Range
    Set xRg = Range(Me.ComboBox1.Text)
    Me.ComboBox2.List = Application.WorksheetFunction.Transpose(xRg)
End Sub

Private Sub Worksheet_SelectionChange(ByVal Target As Range)
    Dim xRg As Range
    Set xRg = Range("Headers")
    Me.ComboBox1.List = Application.WorksheetFunction.Transpose(xRg)
End Sub

Note: In the code, ComboBox1 is the name of the combo box which you will list all range names inside, and ComboBox2 is the name of the combo box which the data of specified named range will be populated inside. The”Headers” is the range name you have created in step1.

7. Turn off the Design Mode by clicking Developer > Design Mode.

8. Click on any cell in the worksheet to activate the code. Click the arrow button in the first combo box, you can see all named ranges are listed inside. See screenshot:

the first combo box listed the row headers

When selecting a named range in the first combo box, the corresponding cell data will be populated in the second combo box as below screenshot shown:

the corresponding cell data will be populated in the second combo box

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