If you’re sharing a Google Sheets file with others, it may sometimes happen that someone enters unexpected data or messes up a formula. Everyone can use the drop-down validation lists to ensure data entries.
You can check to see if the data people enter into a form, application, or spreadsheet conforms to what you’re expecting by adding a drop-down list to the document, application, or spreadsheet. Furthermore, it provides a much faster way for people to input their data since they can choose from a pre-configured list instead of typing it in from scratch.
You will need to open up your Google Sheets file and select the cell(s) in your spreadsheet for which you want to use a drop-down list from the list of cells in the spreadsheet.
In the next step, you must select the “Data” menu to access the “Data Validation” command.
Using the “List of Items” option, we provide several numeric options when using the “List of Items” option.
You must ensure that the “Show Drop-Down List In Cell” option is enabled after entering the Data you want to appear in a drop-down list. Otherwise, the values will not appear in the selected cells after entering the data.
If a user attempts to enter a value, not on the list, you can choose what happens when that attempt is made. By selecting the “Show Warning” option, they will not be able to enter the invalid data, but it will be marked in the Sheet (we will examine how this is done in just a moment). If you choose to “Reject Input,” they will not be able to enter anything that is not on your list.
As a last option, you may enable the “Show validation help text” option to give people an indication of what options they can select in the cells of the worksheet. You can write whatever instructions you wish after choosing the appropriate option.
Once you have finished formatting the Sheet, anyone who uses it can click the drop-down arrow in those cells and choose a value from the drop-down list.
A validation help text appears whenever someone selects one of the validated cells, in case you specified the “Show validation help text” option.
If you selected the option of showing the validation help text when selecting the validated cells, a validation help text would appear whenever someone likes one of the validated cells.
When you hover your mouse over it, you can see why it has been marked.
Instead, if you choose the “Reject Input” option, people who try to enter anything that doesn’t appear on your list will get a warning like this one when they try to do so.
If you need to modify or remove any of the items from the drop-down list you’ve created, please go back to Data> Data Validation and take the necessary actions to make the required changes. It is as simple as clicking on the “Remove Validation” button at the bottom of the screen to remove the entire list from the system.
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