Using the format painter does NOT work.Īlternatively, you can highlight an entire section in step 3 above, instead of one cell.

Copying is the easiest way to do this (you can use the key combinations CTRL-C to copy and CTRL-V to paste). Now that you have created a cell with a dropdown list, you might want to copy the result to the next cell or group of cells.

Highlight the list (this makes the formula in the Data Validation box).

Go back to the tab with the list of names.

Click the icon next to “Source” to get the single line dialog (2nd Picture below).

Note that if the cell already has data in it, it will keep it as long as that data item is in the list created in step 2 above.

In the original tab click on the cell you want to have the dropdown list appear in.

In the new tab list each of the items you want in the list (this can be changed later).

The procedure for doing this is as follows (The images and steps used are from Excel 2016): In this way each time she chose a class it would be the same. I suggested that she put all the class names in another tab in the spreadsheet and make the class name field a dropdown list. I suggested a solution – one that I had learned a previous time we sat down together. Because each class name had been entered manually, there were errors in spelling, formatting, etc. The answer to this seemed relatively simple, query the class name and return the class total if it matched certain criteria. The way the data was set up listed each class separately with a column denoting how many people were in each class. She wanted to find out how many classes there were in total and how many people there were in each type of class. Recently, she brought home a problem from work. Every time I sit down with my wife I learn something new (that’s 40 years of new stuff!).

Drop down menu in excel 2016