A spreadsheet with a lot of typos can be difficult to manage, so reducing this type of error is important.
A drop-down list is an effective way to manage this. Our tutorial below will show you how to add one to your Excel spreadsheet.
Reading: How to create a drop down list in excel 2010
Creating a drop-down list in Excel 2010 seems pretty easy as it is a helpful element and there are many uses for it.
But if you’ve ever tried to create a drop-down menu in Excel, then you might have found that it’s a bit more complicated than it seems.
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If you Entering data into a spreadsheet, or when creating a spreadsheet for others to use, it’s usually a good idea to make things as simple as possible. A good way to do this is by inserting drop-down lists.
If you have a cell that can only have a few different options, such as For example, a month, a day of the week, or even a really long option that you don’t want to type repeatedly, a drop-down list not only saves you time, but also helps avoid spelling or typos. Our guide below shows you how to create a drop-down list in Microsoft Excel 2010.
How to create a drop-down list in Excel 2010
- Create the list for die dropdown
- Select the items, type a name, then press Enter.
- Click in the cell where you want the dropdown to be.
- Select the Data.
- Click Data Validation.
- Select the option List
- Enter an “=” sign, then the name from step 2.
- Click the OK button.
There are a few other settings you can or should apply to the list that we discuss below. Our article continues below with more information and pictures for these steps.
Adding a dropdown list in Excel 2010 (instructions with pictures)
The steps in the article below lead to a dropdown -List you can click to select an option. This is ideally used in situations where you are looking for a specific value or type of text to appear in a cell and you want to avoid problems that can arise when people manually enter the values themselves.
Step 1 : Open your spreadsheet in Excel 2010.
Step 2 : Enter the items you want to include in the list in a column of your spreadsheet. It doesn’t have to be the first column. It can be any column you want.
Step 2: Use your mouse to select all items to include in the list, type a name in the Name field at the top – left corner of the table, and then press Enter on your keyboard. Note that you cannot use spaces or special characters when creating this name.
Step 4: Select the cell where you want the drop-down list to appear.
Step 5: Click on the Data tab at the top of the window.
Step 6: In Data Tools, click the Data Validation button strong> Section of the Officeribbon.
Step 7: Click the drop down menu under Allow and then click the List Option.
Step 8: Enter an “=” sign in the Source field, followed by the name you created for your cell range. For example, in the image below I’m typing =DaysOfTheWeek.
Step 9 (optional): Click on the Input Message tab at the top of the window.
Step 10 (optional): Enter a title for the drop-down list in the Title field, and then enter an input message in the Input Message Field to be displayed when the cell is selected. Here you can add instructions for the drop-down list.
Step 11 (optional): Click on the Error Message tab.
Step 12 (optional) : Choose the style of the alert, and then enter a title and message for the alert. Note that a Stop warning prevents anyone from entering a value that is not on the list, while a Warning or Informational -Warning this allows invalid entries and only informs the user that their entry is invalid.
Step 13: Click the OK button at the bottom of the window to save your settings apply.
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You can make changes to the drop-down list by clicking the cell to select it and then clicking the Data Validation button on the Data tab Click.
If this is your first time creating a dropdown list, you will probably find that you want to change a few things. For example, if other people are entering data, then you will likely want to adjust the settings marked as “optional” above.
These various warning and validation settings help reduce errors and eliminate any confusion you may discover , is a very important element of Excel dropdown menus.
Need to print your spreadsheet, but there is a column that prints on its own page? This guide will show you how to force all your columns to print on one page and save yourself some pages.
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