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stevc999's avatar
stevc999
Copper Contributor
Feb 25, 2025

Named Range Cannot Be found (even though it exists)

Hi,

I am trying to build conditional dropdowns where a selection in the first column drives the values in the dropdown of the second. I have several columns of data and have given each a name

I have created the first dropdown based on Division range and it works great

 

However when I try to create a conditional list using Indirect I get the error - 'A named range you specified cannot be found)

 

The Cell clearly says 'Education' and there is a Named Range called 'Education' as seen in the first screenshot, so no idea why I'm getting that error. 

If anyone can help I'd be eternally grateful and I have no idea what to try next and I've wasted ages trying to make this work

 

5 Replies

  • Indirect has to have quotes around the desired range to be referenced, so that's probably your main issue.

    Additionally, I've had some issues with conditional validation where i think you can only reference a range, not a calculated range -- but spill ranges are okay. Again, I am not 100% I've understood the limitation, but since spill range has always worked for me, that's been my route for such things. I've attached a sample file (no vba) where cell G4 has a country selection (Germany/USA) and the cell below G5 has data validation that's driven off of the above cell showing only cities within the country of choice.

    Steps to create

    • Create list of US cities from B1:B3 of Boston, Atlanta, Dallas
    • Create German cities in C1:C2 of Munich, Berlin
    • In cell A1 enter this formula: =if(G4="USA",B1:B3,C1:C2)
    • Create a named range of listValidation that is =Sheet1!$A$1#  (important to note the hashtag)
    • For you data validation rule in G5 set the validation rule for List =indirect("listValidation")

    Further ideas are that you could have cell A1 be more dynamic, filtering all of columns b and c based on values not being blank. Best choice would probably be a single table column.

     

  • stevc999's avatar
    stevc999
    Copper Contributor

    I have resolved it - it was because I had R1C1 references switched on