Small Excel feature, big time saver

Have you ever sorted a spreadsheet only to discover there are five different ways people entered the same information? “Faculty & Staff,” “Faculty and Staff,” “F/S,” “Faculty/Staff” and “Faculty Staff” may all mean the same thing to a person, but Excel treats them as different values.

A simple drop-down list can eliminate those inconsistencies before they happen.

Instead of relying on everyone to type information the same way, a drop-down list lets users choose from approved options. That means less cleanup later and more reliable data from the start.

Drop-down lists can help you:

• Keep entries consistent across the spreadsheet.
• Make sorting and filtering more reliable.
• Reduce typing mistakes and variations.
• Spend less time cleaning up data before creating reports or sharing information.

They’re useful for any spreadsheet where people repeatedly enter the same information. Excel’s Data Validation feature makes it easy to create a list of approved entries that users can select instead of typing manually. It only takes a few minutes to set up and can save hours of cleanup later.

Ready to create your first drop-down list? Microsoft provides step-by-step instructions for creating and managing data validation lists in Excel.