(If you don't provide the second parameter, then the contents of A1 are repeated in B1-something you may not want to see.) When someone picks an option in the drop-down list, the link in cell B1 becomes active and will link to whatever was selected in A1. The second parameter in the function is optional it provides the text you want displayed in the cell. For instance, if you have your data validation drop-down list in cell A1, then you might put the following formula in cell B1: This will open the window shown in Figure 5. Switch back to the worksheet where the form is beign creating Select the cell that will be holding the drop-down list From the Data menu click the ‘Data Validation’ button (see Figure 4). Perhaps a better solution is to use a workaround that relies on the HYPERLINK function to refer to whatever is selected in the drop-down list. Note: For the purpose of this article the list name is set to ‘ListItems’ Creating the drop-down cell.

(You must first right-click and remove the hyperlink and then do the above steps again.)

Click the URL one more time to follow to that link.Īs you can tell, these steps are a bit awkward, and they become more so if you want to select a different URL from the drop-down list.

Excel lets you start to edit the hyperlink.

Double-click the URL that appears in the cell.

(The list created using data validation.) The URL now appears in the cell.

Select a URL from your drop-down list.

Find the symbol that looks like the down-arrow. On the Symbol window, choose Wingdings 3 from the Text drop-down. Go to the Insert tab on the ribbon, press the Symbol button. This behavior is a bit kludgy in Excel, however. Here are the steps to create the icon: Select the cell to the right of the cell that contains a validation list. You can, however, make whatever you select in the drop-down list become active. The short answer is no, you can't do that directly. (How to do this has been covered in other ExcelTips.) He wonders if it possible to create a drop-down list of hyperlinks and, further, have those hyperlinks remain 'hot' when they are selected. Greg knows that he can use data validation to create a drop-down list of choices for a particular cell.

Excel drop down list