Dropdown within a dropdown?

Copper Contributor

Hi brilliant excel wizards!

 

I have a sheet that contains the dropdown options for a budget. I used data validation on another sheet to create the dropdown. The problem is that there are a LOT of options.  Here is a partial of the choices within the dropdown:

 

HOME
  Mortgage / Rent
  Insurance (Rental/Home)
  Electricity
  Gas / Oil
  Water/Sewer/Trash
  Phone
  Cable
  Internet
  Furnishings / Applicances
  Lawn / Garden
  HOA Fees
  Maintenance / Improvements
  Other
ENTERTAINMENT
 Streaming Subscriptions
 Video / DVD / Movies
 Gaming
 Concerts / Plays

 

As you can imagine, the list is quite long. It would be wonderful if somehow, they first select the main category and then the line-items for the selected category show as additional options. I am using office 365. I don't want to assume that excel isn't capable of doing this in one cell so I thought I would throw it out there to you all! Maybe it is possible?

 

If that doesn't work, I was going to try to solve the problem with using color but I don't see how to set up a dropdown to display the color (as you can do in GSheets) within the dropdown list. I see I can use conditional formatting once the selection is made but that doesn't really solve the usability issue.

 

Any ideas? 

 

Thanks!

5 Replies

@DV1702 

I'd use two cells: one with a drop-down list of the categories, and the other with a drop-down list of the options for the category selected in the first one.

See Create Dependent Drop-Down Lists 

Thanks! I was hoping to avoid using a second cell. Is there a way to actually show color in the dropdown list? As far as I can tell, it looks like that is only possible with conditional formatting once the selection has been made.

@DV1702 

You are correct - it is not possible to color items in a drop-down list.

How about this searchable tree view picker?
https://b23.tv/DqK8qss