1] Enter Data Validation Details Open the Microsoft Excel file, select the cells you would like to limit. Go to the ‘ Data ’ tab located on the Ribbon menu.

Follow the steps below to create a drop-down list using data validation in Excel. If you want to add a message pop up, you can click the Input Message tab and check the checkbox for “Show input ...

Figure A We’ll add a data validation control to this sheet. Click the Data tab, and then, click Data Validation in the Data Tools group. In the resulting dialog, choose List from the Allow dropdown.

Proceed to the Data tab on the ribbon and select Data Validation from the Data Tools group. A Data Validation dialogue box will appear. Choose the Settings tab.

You can easily create a drop-down list in Excel to limit the values that can be entered in a column. This data validation helps prevent mistakes, such as misspellings.