Drop down lists in excel

J

Judy

Is there a way to program a drop down list in excel to auto fill while
typing? I know it can be done by a combo box, but we would prefer to keep it
as a drop down list and access is not an option at this time. Thank you
 
G

Gord Dibben

Not by using a dropdown list from Data Validation.

Combobox is generally the workaround.


Gord Dibben MS Excel MVP
 
J

Judy

I was affraid of that. The list we are using for the data validation is 9858
items long! But thank you for verifying it for me.
 
K

Ken Johnson

Is there a way to program a drop down list in excel to auto fill while
typing? I know it can be done by a combo box, but we would prefer to keep it
as a drop down list and access is not an option at this time. Thank you

A cell with DV using a source list will AutoComplete when the
following conditions are met...

1. The "Enable AutoComplete for cell values" option, on the Edit tab
of the Options dialog, is selected.

2. The DV source list is in the same column and above the DV cells.

3. Either of the two columns immediately to the left or right of the
column with the DV cells contains no blank cells starting at the row
immediately below the source list (at least) down to the row with the
lower-most DV cell.

So you could move your source list to the same column as the DV cells
and above the uppermost DV cell, then hide the rows with the source
list. Then insert a column next to the column with the DV cells and
hidden source list, fill it with any character, down as far as the
lower-most DV cell, then hide it too.

With 9858 rows in your source list you probably won't want to use this
method.

Ken Johnson
 

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