Creating a Drop Down List in a Cell in Excel 2012

There are situations, where we need to use restricted set of data in a list. When in data entry works are carried out by many people, chances are vast that small errors might occur. To overcome this, we can use drop down list in Excel. This not only restricts the user to enter the correct data also it helps to reduce the time to write it manually.  So for creating Drop down list, do we need to use Excel VBA feature? No;. Excel provides this feature in the form of data validation. So let us see how to create drop down list in Excel.
Steps to Create Drop List in Excel:

• Enter the list of items in a range
• Select the cell that will contain the drop down list
• Choose Data-> Data Tools->Data Validation
• In the data validation dialog box, click the settings Tab
• In the allow drop-down list select List.
• In the source box specify the range that contains the items
• Make sure that the In-Cell Drop down option is checked and Click OK
• You are done. The drop down list is created in your desired Cell.

Note:

• If your list is small, then you can manually enter the list of items in the source box in the Data Validation dialog box.
• You can copy paste the Drop down list created cell to other cells to carry the drop down list.