Select the cells where you want to add a dropdown list.
Click Data from the main toolbar, then select Data validation from the list.
On the right of the Criteria label is a drop-down box where we can select where to get the list of items for the drop-down box. By default, List from a range is selected, which is the option we need.
Click the Range icon on the textbox beside it.
Click Save.
You have now inserted dropdown lists to the selected cells!
You can add Dropdown in google sheets without having to store the menu options anywhere in your spreadsheet. You can instead add the dropdown options manually. Here are the steps:
Select the cells where you want to add a dropdown list.
Click Data from the main toolbar, then select Data validation from the list.
On the right of the Criteria label is a drop-down box where we can select where to get the list of items for the drop-down box. Click it and select List of items.
Start typing the items in the textbox beside it. Separate each item with a comma.
After adding all of your options, click Save.
You have now inserted dropdown lists to the selected cells!
To copy the dropdown from one cell to another, simply copy the cell containing it and then paste it to the target cell.
If you want to extend the dropdown menu down the same column, you can click the last cell with the dropdown menu, click its lower-right corner square, and then drag it down the column.
Simply pressing Delete on your keyboard will remove the selected option on the cell but will not remove the dropdown menu. Here are the steps to remove a dropdown menu from a range of cells:
Select the cells where you want to remove the dropdown menu.
Click Data on the main menu, then select Data validation from the drop-down menu.
You can check the screencap below to see how it works:
If you attempt to input data that is not in the dropdown list, you will get a warning:
You can set the cell to reject invalid input by doing the following steps:
Step 1: Select the cells
Step 2: Open data validation from the Data tab on the main toolbar.
Step 3: Check Reject input
You will get this message when you input a value not listed in the dropdown box:
If you input the list manually in the Data validation box, you can only manually arrange the items in the box. If the list is in a sheet, you can sort Google sheets dropdown using one of the methods in this tutorial.
You can color code a dropdown list by using conditional formatting. Click here to color code lists in Google Sheets.
We hope this article has helped you and given you a better understanding on how to add a drop-down list in Google Sheets. You might also like our articles on absolute cell reference and data validation in Google Sheets.
To optimize your workflow, we recommend reading our guide on how to mail merge labels in Google Sheets and trying our software for invoice approvals!
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