excel drop down list help please

eventually

Hi, hope someone can help with this question....

I have a spreadsheet with a column for customers names. I would like to be able to start typing 'b' for example in this column and a drop down list of only customers with a name beginning with 'b' to appear. Is this possible?

At the moment all I have been able to do is set up a drop down list, but as the list of customers is quite you still have to scroll down it to find the customer you want so its not really helping to make the process of entering the data any more slicker.

Can any one help with this please?
Thanks

pcombo

Yea select the full row right click and create list. It will then make a drop down box appear to search for what you asked you want a custom search.

eventually

Sorry I dont fully understand your reply - must be getting too late in the day to be trying to sort this!

I can create a drop down list ok, thats not the problem, I just want it to only show the appropriate items on the list depending on what I start to type in the cell e.g.

customers names, able, bell, bond, baker, colin, douglas
when I type in the letter 'b' I only want it to show bell, bond, and baker as ones I can select i.e not display able, colin or douglas

I hope thats understandable!

pcombo

yea with creating a list u click the drop down and you do a custom search.

in the search box it you will see( begins with then you can put

then only letters starting with b will be shown.

DVardysShadow

pcombo wrote: »

yea with creating a list u click the drop down and you do a custom search.

in the search box it you will see( begins with then you can put

then only letters starting with b will be shown.

I think what you are saying is that when OP types 'b', the selected entry goes to the first one beginning with 'b'.

However, I think OP requires only entries beginning with 'b' to be displayed.

eventually

Thanks DVardysShadow, thats what I need - any ideas on how to do it?

I am using excel 2007 - I cannot get it to show a custom search as Pcombo suggests.

Can anyone help please?

Mike_by_the_Sea

eventually wrote: »

Hi, hope someone can help with this question....

I have a spreadsheet with a column for customers names. I would like to be able to start typing 'b' for example in this column and a drop down list of only customers with a name beginning with 'b' to appear. Is this possible?

At the moment all I have been able to do is set up a drop down list, but as the list of customers is quite you still have to scroll down it to find the customer you want so its not really helping to make the process of entering the data any more slicker.

Can any one help with this please?
Thanks

Hi eventually

As a simple fix, you can just select the drop-down list and press the appropriate letter on the keyboard and it will take you to the start of the customers starting with that letter.

Slightly slicker

Mike

DVardysShadow

Mike_by_the_Sea wrote: »

Hi eventually

As a simple fix, you can just select the drop-down list and press the appropriate letter on the keyboard and it will take you to the start of the customers starting with that letter.

Slightly slicker

Mike

Mike, this has been dealt with - OP is aware of it, but wants the full job.

eventually wrote: »

Thanks DVardysShadow, thats what I need - any ideas on how to do it?

I am using excel 2007 - I cannot get it to show a custom search as Pcombo suggests.

Can anyone help please?

Sorry, I can't, although I can see exactly what you want. Is pcombo suggesting a right click on the dropdown box itself to get a custom search?

Otherwise, I know nothing about excel. But I can see that if the feature is not already provided on the dropdown box, you have a challenging bit of programming to write a macro to select names and to associate the macro with the event of typing a character while the dropdown box has focus, passing the selected character to the macro.