How to create or insert drop down list in cells in Excel?

You can help yourself or others to work more efficiently in worksheets for data entry by using drop down lists. With drop down list, you can quickly pick an item from the list instead of typing the own value manually.

Create data validation drop down list with build-in in Excel

1. Firstly, you need to create a list with the data you will display in the drop-down list.

2. Select where you will place the drop-down lists.

3. Click Data > Data Validation. See screenshot:

4. In the popping up Data Validation dialog box, please to do as follows:

• Under the Settings tab, select List from the Allow drop down list;
• Click in the Source box, and then go to select the data you have created in step 1;

5. Go to the Input Message tab, fill in the Title box and the Input message box if you want to display an input message when selecting a drop-down list cell.

6. Go ahead to click the Error Alert tab, fill in the Title box and the Error message box.

7. Click OK to finish the whole settings. Now the drop-down lists are created.

Notes:

1. The drop-down arrow is visible only when the cell is selected.

2. The error alert will pop up with specific title and error message when invalid data is entered into the drop-down list cell.

Quickly create a simple drop down list with an amazing tool

Here highly recommend the Create simple drop-down list utility of Kutools for Excel. With this tool, you can easily create a simple drop down list with several clicks only.

Before applying Kutools for Excel, please download and install it firstly.

1. Select the range of cells to output the drop down list, and then click Kutools > Drop-down list > Create simple drop-down list. 

2. In the Create simple drop down list dialog box, please configure as follows.

• The range you have selected in step 1 is displayed in the Apply to box. You can change the range as you need;
• In the Source section, if you want to create drop down lists based on data of a cell range or you just need to enter values manually, please select the Enter a value or reference a cell value option;
• In the text box, select the cell range or type in values (separate by commas) you will create the drop-down list based on;
• Click the OK button. See screenshot:

Note: If you want to create a drop-down list based on custom list, please select the Custom Lists option in the Source section, choose a custom list in the Custom Lists box, and then click the OK button.

Now the simple drop down list is created as the below demo shown.

  If you want to have a free trial ( 30-day) of this utility, please click to download it, and then go to apply the operation according above steps.

More drop-down list operations:

Drop down list - Multi-selection
By default, a drop-down list cell only allows selecting an item per time. In many cases, you may need to select multiple items from a drop-down list, here we provide a VBA method in details for you to easily create drop-down list with multiple selections in Excel. Click to know more...

Drop down list - Auto complete
Normally, you can only select an item from the drop-down list or typing the entire data into the drop-down list cell. If there is a long drop-down list, it's not easy for you to find the accurate item in the list. Do you want to complete the value automatically when typing the first letter only? Click to know more...

Drop down list - With checkboxes
Create drop-down list with checkboxes helps you selecting multiple items at the same time in a drop-down list. However, it seems hard to achieve, here we provide detailed steps to help you easily get it done. Click to know more...

Create Dynamic Drop-down List
Supposing there are two drop-down lists A and B in your worksheet, when you choose a value in drop-down list A, the values in drop-down list B will be updated automatically based on the selection in A. Here we provide detailed steps to help you easily create dynamic drop-down list with the Data Validation feature and the INDIRECT function. Click to know more...

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