Excel is a complex and an advanced tool. You can put options in Excel to make it users to validate their information. This might seem like a hard task but its very easy by following a few steps: Lets get started.
By creating a dropdown list
1. In an open Excel worksheet, highlight cells you wish to include as options
2. Click on the Data tab of the main menu ribbon.
3. Click on the Data Validation option to display a dialog box.
4. In the pop-up dialog box, click on the Settings tab.
5. Under Validation criteria, set Allow option to List.
6. Click the Source and type the information you wish to add as he options
7. Click the OK button.
8. A list will appear once you click the Icon next to the cell
How to put options with an error message
1. Launch the Microsoft Excel program and open the workbook you want to add an option list.
2. Type in the values you want to appear in the options list. Make sure your data entries are in a table.
3. In your worksheet, click the cell you wish the options list to be included.
4. Navigate to the Data tab of the main menu ribbon.
5. In the Data Tools group, click to select Data Validation.
6. In the displayed Data Validation window, click Settings .
7. Pick list in the validation criteria section
8. Click Source section and enter the range
9. You can opt to check the Ignore blank checkbox. This will allow user to choose leave an empty cell
10. Next, tick the In-cell dropdown checkbox. This allows a drop down feature to appear in the cell that you have selected.
11. Click on the Input Message section
Here you will be able to set a notification that will appear every time a user clicks the cell. To do this, tick the checkbox. Next, enter a custom alert and title in the sections provided. Check the screenshot below for illustration.
12. Navigate to Error Alert section of the Data Validation window.
Here you can type in a message that will appear when anyone enters something that is not on the List. To do this, tick the checkbox. now set what style you wish:
In the dropdown arrow, you can choose Information (blue circular icon) or Warning (yellow triangular icon) to display a notification which prevent users from typing valid information. You can also select the Stop option (red circular warning) to stop people from entering data that is not in the dropdown list. Next, type in your message and title in the Title and Error message section.
13. Click the OK button, and the cell will have options. You can click on the drop-down arrow to view the options
14. If you type something that is not on the list, it will display an error
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