Excel Drop Down Lists

Jun 20, 2015 by azurous in Drop Down List

Generally speaking there are 3 types of drop down lists in Excel:

Form Control
ActiveX
Data Validation.

In this article I will brieftly explain each one and provide links to more detailed explanation of each.

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Contents

Form Control (Combo Box):

These drop down lists which are actually called ComboBoxes are used in userforms. Although they can also be used on worksheeta, I don’t recommend it. In the figure below you can see a combobox on a userform. It was created using the toolbox:

This drop down list (combo box) is covered in detail in the article below:

VBA UserForm Drop Down Lists

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Activex (Combo box)

Again this drop down list is called a combo box. You can insert one of these onto a worksheet similar to the figure below:

Again I do not recommend this. The main reason I say this is due to a aesthetics concerns. Its really difficult making an ActiveX drop down list look good on a sheet. You would have to match the dimension with that of a cell and every time your cell size changes or moves around you would have to readjust the control. Therefor I’m not going to explain this drop down list.

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Data Validation:

The method I use for making drop down lists in excel sheets, is data validation. Below you can see a drop down list created using data validation:

I have covered this topic in detail in the article below:

Excel VBA Drop Down Lists Using Data Validation