Microsoft Excel Select a value from a predefined list of values with dropdown option to validate the data

Hi friends,

When I was preparing a sheet by referencing some pre-defined names as list to a field/cell. I was thinking the feature of Microsoft Excel dropdown list. After exploring the option and using, I thought of sharing with you all.

Objective: Selecting a cell value from a list of pre-defined values

Procedure:

1. Open blank excel workbook
2. Prepare you template with headers
3. Create a new sheet and rename it. Ex: "Names"
4. Enter the values from Column A from cell A1 in vertical direction
5. Don't use any other columns
6. Don't leave any empty cell in between the values
7. Leave first cell as empty, if you want to include the empty option in a dropdown
8. Select the cell which contains the values
9. Right click and choose the option "Define Name"
10. Give a name to the list of values. Ex: NamesList
11. Click on "OK" button
12. Now, move to the sheet where we want to use the list of names as a dropdown option
13. Select the cell(s), where we want to have the dropdown list
14. Click on "Data" Menu
15. From "Data Tools" ribbon, click "Data Validation" from "Data Validation" submenu
16. In Settings tab, Validation Criteria section, for the option Allow, select "List"
17. Choose the options
• Ignore blank: Ignore when user no selected any option
• In-cell Dropdown: Show the dropdown list in cell
18. In "Source" field, type the defined name for the list preceded with = (Equal to) symbol. Ex: =NamesList
19. Now, you should be able to see the dropdown with empty values
20. Select the predefined values from the dropdown list of names.

Please send your comments and feedback to psrdotcom@gmail.com

Excel VBA: Multi-selection Listbox using pop-up window to display column values

Description:

We have following excel sheet with the two columns Names and Requirednames.
Names column has all the names
Required Names column should have some selected name(s)

Names	Required Names
ABC,DEF,GHI
PSR,DOT,COM

What we can do other than copy and paste?

We can create a pop-up window which will display all the names by using list box and we can select the required names from that list box.

Procedure:

1.	Go to Developer Tab -> Design Mode
2.	Click on Insert and click -> CommandButton
3.	Drag the cursor to create a button
4.	Rename button with name "Show Names" in sheet
5.	Assign a macro to it with name "DisplayNames"
6.	Open VBEditor
7.	Goto Insert -> User Form
8.	We will get one form, Design the form as follows
9.	UserForm1
10.	Change Caption to "Names Selection" in Form Properties
11.	Change Caption to "List of Names" in Frame Properties
12.	Change Caption to "Select the names and click OK" in Lable Properties
13.	Change Name to "lbEmp", MultiSelect to 1-fmMultiSelectMulti in ListBox Properties
14.	Change Name to "submit" and Caption to "OK" in Button1 Properties
15.	Change Name to "close" and Caption to "Close" in Button2 Properties
16.	Change Name to "reset" and Caption to "Reset" in Button3 Properties
17.	Select Excel window, Go to Macros and Select "DisplayNames" macro(which is already assigned to the Button in Sheet), Click on Edit
18.	Write the following code: Dim rngEmp() As String Dim emps As String Dim i As Integer Application.Sheets("Sheet1").Select emps = ActiveCell.Offset(0, -1).Value If emps = "" Then MsgBox ("No Name(s) Available") End Else rngEmp = Split(emps, ",") End If For i = LBound(rngEmp) To UBound(rngEmp) UserForm1.lbEmp.AddItem rngEmp(i) Next UserForm1.Show
19.	Double-click on the UserForm1 from the Forms directory in VBEditor
20.	Double-click on any one of the button on the form to view code(shortcut: F7)
21.	Select all the code and delete it. Paste the following code Private Sub close_Click() Unload UserForm1 End Sub Private Sub reset_Click() UserForm1.lbEmp.Clear End Sub Private Sub submit_Click() Dim emps As String emps = "" For i = 0 To UserForm1.lbEmp.ListCount - 1 If lbEmp.Selected(i) = True Then 'MsgBox lbEmp.List(i) If emps = "" Then emps = lbEmp.List(i) ElseIf emps <> "" Then emps = emps & "," & lbEmp.List(i) End If End If Next i ActiveCell.Value = emps End Sub
21.	Save and Close the VBEditor. Goto Excel sheet
22.	Select the right adjacent Cell say B1 Cell
23.	Click the button which we created on the sheet
24.	Select the name(s) and Click Ok to see values in the selected cell
25.	We can select Multiple Names at a time which will display names with the delimiter "," in the selected cell
26.	If A's cell doesn't contain any value then it will display a message "No Name(s) Available"
27.	We have to select Close to close the pop-up window
28.	We can select Clear to clear list and then select close to cancel

You can see the sample output

Names	Required Names
ABC,DEF,GHI	ABC
PSR,DOT,COM	PSR,COM

Note:

For any further queries and/or suggestions please contact psrdotcom@gmail.com