Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Excel in Office 365. If you are using an earlier version (Excel 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Excel, click here: Limiting Choices in a Cell.
When you are developing worksheets that will be used by others, you may want to limit what your users can enter into a particular cell. For instance, you might have a cell where the user should enter their department. You would obviously want them to only enter one of the valid departments for your company.
To ensure that only certain departments can be entered in the cell, follow these steps:
Figure 1. The Settings tab of the Data Validation dialog box.
Figure 2. The Error Alert tab of the Data Validation dialog box.
That's it. Now, the user can only enter one of your valid department names. Better yet, when they select the cell, they will see a drop-down arrow at the right of the cell where they can select from the department names you specified in step 5. If they enter one that is incorrect, they will see the error message and will need to change what they entered.
ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (8033) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Excel in Office 365. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Excel here: Limiting Choices in a Cell.
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Data validation can be used to create lists of choices for entry into a particular cell. Using the techniques in this tip ...
Discover MoreThe Data Validation capabilities of Excel can be very helpful when you are trying to control what people can enter into a ...
Discover MoreWant to control what users put into a cell? It's easy to do using a feature called data validation, as described in this tip.
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2019-02-09 10:30:45
Lou B
Be aware that the Source box has a limit of 256 characters, otherwise you've got to use a range reference for the values.
More importantly, Data Validation only affects values that you type into a cell. If you Copy/Paste the values in, or use Find/Replace, the Validation has no effect.
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Please Note:
This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Excel in Office 365. If you are using an earlier version (Excel 2003 or earlier), this tip may not work for you. For a version of this tip written specifically for earlier versions of Excel, click here: 
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