Please Note: This article is written for users of the following Microsoft Excel versions: 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Excel in Microsoft 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: Using InputBox to Get Data.

Using InputBox to Get Data

Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated December 20, 2021)
This tip applies to Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Excel in Microsoft 365

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If you are developing a simple custom application in Excel, you may want to use the InputBox function to retrieve information from the user, and then place that information in a particular place in a worksheet. This can be easily done in the following manner:

UserValue = InputBox("Value to use?")
Cells(1, 1).Value = UserValue

These two lines, when inserted into a macro, prompt the user for input. This input is assigned to the UserValue variable by the InputBox function. The contents of this variable are then deposited in cell A1 of the current worksheet using the Cells method. If you prefer, you could also use the Range object to specify a location for the value, as shown here:

UserValue = InputBox("Value to use?")
Range("B3").Value = UserValue

This example deposits the value of UserValue into cell B3.

Note:

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ExcelTips is your source for cost-effective Microsoft Excel training. This tip (12496) applies to Microsoft Excel 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and Excel in Microsoft 365. You can find a version of this tip for the older menu interface of Excel here: Using InputBox to Get Data.

Author Bio

Allen Wyatt

With more than 50 non-fiction books and numerous magazine articles to his credit, Allen Wyatt is an internationally recognized author. He is president of Sharon Parq Associates, a computer and publishing services company. ...

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What is 5 + 0?

2021-12-28 10:18:03

J. Woolley

My Excel Toolbox includes the InputBoxVBA_Custom and InputBoxApp_Custom functions. Both allow positioning that can be either the location of a worksheet's cell or absolute screen coordinates. The standard InputBox functions only permit the latter.
See https://sites.google.com/view/MyExcelToolbox/

2021-12-27 08:29:26

Ferreira

I reda every day, they are fantastic, thanks a lot

2021-12-20 08:48:07

Kiwerry

Thank you, Allen
Quick addition:
be aware that apart from the InputBox mentioned by Allen (and described in detail on https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/office/vba/language/reference/user-interface-help/inputbox-function ),
there is an application specific Inputbox (described in
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/office/vba/api/excel.application.inputbox)
which operates in a very similar way, but has an advantage for some situations in that the Type of the input (e.g. Text, or Numbers) can be restricted; If the Type is set to 1, for example, the InputBox won't accept a string.
Note also that the InputBox returns "" if Cancel is pressed, but the Application.InputBox returns False.

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