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Workinprogress's avatar
Workinprogress
Copper Contributor
Sep 17, 2019

Drop down box indicator help for novice

I am making some drop down boxes but the drop down box arrow is not there when I click on another box in the Excel sheet. How do I make it show all the time so people know there is a drop down box there? Sorry for such a novice question. I thought I had decent excel skills until I started to do this and now I feel like I need to take excel 101 again. 🙂
excel

5 Replies

  • Subodh_Tiwari_sktneer's avatar
    Subodh_Tiwari_sktneer
    Silver Contributor
    Sep 17, 2019

    Workinprogress 

    That is how a dropdown (data validation list) works. The dropdown arrow will only appear when the cell with dropdown is selected. To help the user to know that the cells have a dropdown in them, you may format those cells to have a visual clue for dropdowns.

     

    It you have inserted the dropdown lists in few cells only and want the dropdown arrow to appear all the time, you may consider inserting the ComboBox from the Form Controls and specify the Input Range and the Linked Cells.

    • Workinprogress's avatar
      Workinprogress
      Copper Contributor
      Sep 17, 2019
      Thank you Subodh for your reply. Where do I find the combo box in form controls? Sorry.... really novice to using drop downs.
      • Subodh_Tiwari_sktneer's avatar
        Subodh_Tiwari_sktneer
        Silver Contributor
        Sep 17, 2019

        Workinprogress 

        They can be inserted through Developer Tab and if you don't have Developer Tab on the ribbon, https://support.office.com/en-us/article/show-the-developer-tab-e1192344-5e56-4d45-931b-e5fd9bea2d45.

         

        And this is how you may https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OtHMdTCeoQ on the Sheet and set it's properties.

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