Forum Discussion
How to create drop down list but show different values in Excel?
Obviously, you already know how to do data validation as your schedule is full of it. What exactly do you want to return and where? You speak of "an abbreviated word" and "highlighted information in the 2nd page". You mean the yellow cells in columns L:M? The words are exactly the same as in column A (=basis for all your drop-downs). What's the purpose of the sequential number (1-29) in col M?
Perhaps you intend to write abbreviations in L1:L29 and have these displayed in columns B:G on "Sheet1", depending on the selections made. For example, select "Competitive Catalyst" from the drop-down and then return "CompCat". That could be tricky. So, please clarify your intentions.
do you think that it is something you can help with? Riny_van_Eekelen
My recommendation would be to re-work the Instrument names to a shorter version to begin with and use these in the dropdowns. Then you can have a list with the full Instrument names on the side, if needed, for reference. Not sure how you could have a dropdown with the full name and have it replaced by the abbreviation in the same cell. It would violate the whole idea of having data validation in the first place. A work-around could be to introduce helper columns that look up the abbreviation, based on the name in the dropdown. I've done that in the attached example. I made up some abbreviations in the 2nd page and entered some formulae in the yellow cells in Sheet1. Press the minus-sign above columns C and E to hide columns B and D (you can read more about "Data / Group and outline" in the help screens, in case you are not familiar with it). Hopefully, either of these solutions may work for you. If not, someone else might come up with a better idea.
thank you for the help. I think I can work with and around that. I really appreciate your time and the showing and hiding columns is pretty cool. Riny_van_Eekelen