Skip to main content

Kutools for Office — One Suite. Five Tools. Get More Done.

How to create slicers as an alternative to dependent drop-down lists in Excel?

Author Siluvia Last modified

Usually, we create multi-level dependent drop-down lists to see all corresponding items from a dataset. As shown in the gif below, all choices in the sub drop-down lists depend on the item selected in the primary drop-down list. However, the approach to achieve this task is multi-steps and time-consuming. Here, in this tutorial, we will describe how to use “slicers” as an alternative to dependent drop-down lists in Excel.

Create slicers as an alternative to dependent drop-down lists in Excel

Please do as follows to create slicers as an alternative to dependent drop-down lists in Excel.

1. Make sure that your data range is Table format.

Tips: If the data range is not Table format, you need to convert it to Table.

1) Select the whole data range and press Ctrl + T keys.
2) In the opening Create Table dialog box, you can see the address of the selected range is listed in the textbox. If the range you selected has headers, please check the My table has header box and click the OK button.

create a table for the data

2. Click on any cell in the table, then click Design (under the Table Tools tab) > Insert Slicer.

click Design > Insert Slicer.

3. In the Insert Slicers dialog box, all headers of the table are listed. You need to check which columns you would like to display, and then click the OK button. In my case, I check all the columns.

check the columns to display

Then, it inserts 5 slicers (the number of slicers inserted depends on how many headers you selected in step 3) into the current worksheet.

slicers are inserted

4. Now you need to manually place the slicers side by side and adjust the sizes to your needs. See screenshot:

place the slicers side by side and adjust the sizes

5. When picking any item in the primary slicer, the corresponding items in the sub slicers will be highlighted immediately.

When picking any item in the primary slicer, the corresponding items in the sub slicers will be highlighted immediately

Note: You can see in the screenshot above that all items that are not part of the item selected by the primary slicer are still displayed in the sub slicer. To hide these invalid items, you can do as follows:

1) Right click the slicer where you want to hide the invalid items and select Slicer Setting in the context menu.

Right click the slicer to hide the invalid items and select Slicer Setting

2) In the popping up Slicer Settings dialog box, check the Hide items with no data box in the Item Sorting and Filtering section, and then click the OK button.

check the Hide items with no data box in the dialog box

3) Repeat the above step 1 and 2 to hide invalid items in all sub slicers you need.

From now on, when selecting an item in the primary slicer, only corresponding items based on this selection will be displayed in the sub slicers. See screenshot:

when selecting an item in the primary slicer, only corresponding items based on this selection will be displayed in the sub slicers

Notes:

1) You can select multiple items in the slicer by enabling the Multi-Select options and then selecting the items one by one.

select multiple items in the slicer by enabling the Multi-Select options

2) You can clear the current selection by clicking the Clear Filter button in the upper right corner of the slicer.

clear the current selection by clicking the Clear Filter button

3) In fact, there is no master-slave relationship between the slicers. You can select items in any of the slicers to display the corresponding items for a dataset.

select items in any of the slicers to display the corresponding items

4) After selecting items in the slicers, the original data will also be filtered.
a screenshot of kutools for excel ai

Unlock Excel Magic with Kutools AI

  • Smart Execution: Perform cell operations, analyze data, and create charts—all driven by simple commands.
  • Custom Formulas: Generate tailored formulas to streamline your workflows.
  • VBA Coding: Write and implement VBA code effortlessly.
  • Formula Interpretation: Understand complex formulas with ease.
  • Text Translation: Break language barriers within your spreadsheets.
Enhance your Excel capabilities with AI-powered tools. Download Now and experience efficiency like never before!

Best Office Productivity Tools

🤖 Kutools AI Aide: Revolutionize data analysis based on: Intelligent Execution   |  Generate Code  |  Create Custom Formulas  |  Analyze Data and Generate Charts  |  Invoke Kutools Functions…
Popular Features: Find, Highlight or Identify Duplicates   |  Delete Blank Rows   |  Combine Columns or Cells without Losing Data   |   Round without Formula ...
Super Lookup: Multiple Criteria VLookup  |   Multiple Value VLookup  |   VLookup Across Multiple Sheets   |   Fuzzy Lookup ....
Advanced Drop-down List: Quickly Create Drop Down List   |  Dependent Drop Down List   |  Multi-select Drop Down List ....
Column Manager: Add a Specific Number of Columns  |  Move Columns  |  Toggle Visibility Status of Hidden Columns  |  Compare Ranges & Columns ...
Featured Features: Grid Focus   |  Design View   |   Big Formula Bar   |  Workbook & Sheet Manager   |  Resource Library (Auto Text)   |  Date Picker   |  Combine Worksheets   |  Encrypt/Decrypt Cells   |  Send Emails by List   |  Super Filter   |   Special Filter (filter bold/italic/strikethrough...) ...
Top 15 Toolsets:  12 Text Tools (Add Text, Remove Characters, ...)   |   50+ Chart Types (Gantt Chart, ...)   |   40+ Practical Formulas (Calculate age based on birthday, ...)   |   19 Insertion Tools (Insert QR Code, Insert Picture from Path, ...)   |   12 Conversion Tools (Numbers to Words, Currency Conversion, ...)   |   7 Merge & Split Tools (Advanced Combine Rows, Split Cells, ...)   |   ... and more
Use Kutools in your preferred language – supports English, Spanish, German, French, Chinese, and 40+ others!

Supercharge Your Excel Skills with Kutools for Excel, and Experience Efficiency Like Never Before. Kutools for Excel Offers Over 300 Advanced Features to Boost Productivity and Save Time.  Click Here to Get The Feature You Need The Most...

Office Tab Brings Tabbed interface to Office, and Make Your Work Much Easier

  • Enable tabbed editing and reading in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Publisher, Access, Visio and Project.
  • Open and create multiple documents in new tabs of the same window, rather than in new windows.
  • Increases your productivity by 50%, and reduces hundreds of mouse clicks for you every day!

All Kutools add-ins. One installer

Kutools for Office suite bundles add-ins for Excel, Word, Outlook & PowerPoint plus Office Tab Pro, which is ideal for teams working across Office apps.

Excel Word Outlook Tabs PowerPoint
  • All-in-one suite — Excel, Word, Outlook & PowerPoint add-ins + Office Tab Pro
  • One installer, one license — set up in minutes (MSI-ready)
  • Works better together — streamlined productivity across Office apps
  • 30-day full-featured trial — no registration, no credit card
  • Best value — save vs buying individual add-in