Sanjida Ahmed
Data validation dropdown lists are a very useful feature to perform various Excel related tasks. Implementing VBA is the most effective, quickest, and safest method to run any operation in Excel. In this article, we will show you 7 different applications of the data validation drop-down list in Excel with the VBA macro.
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7 Methods with VBA in Data Validation Drop Down List in Excel
In this section, you learn 7 different applications of the data validation drop-down list in Excel with VBA macro.
1. Embed VBA to Create a Data Validation Drop Down List in Excel
To know how to create a data validation drop-down list with VBA, follow the steps below.
Steps:
- At the beginning, press Alt + F11 on your keyboard or go to the tab Developer -> Visual Basic to open Visual Basic Editor.
- Then, in the pop-up code window, from the menu bar, click Insert -> Module.
- After that, copy the following code and paste it into the code window.
Sub CreateDropDownList()
Range("B5").Validation.Add Type:=xlValidateList, AlertStyle:=xlValidAlertStop, Formula1:="Grapes, Orange, Guava, Mango, Apple"
End SubYour code is now ready to run.
This piece of code will create a dropdown list in Cell B5. And the dropdown list will carry values “Grapes, Orange, Guava, Mango, Apple“.
- Now, press F5 on your keyboard or from the menu bar select Run -> Run Sub/UserForm. You can also just click on the small Run icon in the sub-menu bar to run the macro.
After the code execution, look at the image below to see the result.
As we can see from the above image is that there is a dropdown list created in Cell B5 with the values “Grapes, Orange, Guava, Mango, Apple“.
Read More: How to Create Excel Drop Down List for Data Validation (8 Ways)
2. Generating Drop Down List by Named Range with VBA in Excel
When you don’t want to write each and every value of a dropdown list inside the code, then you can put all the names inside a defined name and later use it to call the range of values. This is a very convenient method for creating a dropdown list in Excel.
In this section, you will learn how to generate a dropdown list from a given list using Named Range with VBA code.
Steps:
- Firstly, select the range where the values of the dropdown list are present (in our case, the range is B5:B9).
- Secondly, right-click on the selected range.
- A list of options will appear. From there, select Define Name…
- After that, a New Name pop-up box will appear. In the Name box, write any name that you like (we named our cell Fruits).
- Later, click OK.
- We have successfully named the range B5:B9 Fruits (shown in the picture below).
Now we will use this defined name in our VBA code. The steps to do that are shown below.
- Same way as before, open Visual Basic Editor from the Developer tab and Insert a Module in the code window.
- Then, in the code window, copy the following code and paste it.
Sub GenerateDropDownList()
Range("B12").Validation.Add Type:=xlValidateList, AlertStyle:=xlValidAlertStop, Formula1:="=Fruits"
End SubYour code is now ready to run.
This piece of code will create a dropdown list in Cell B12 with the values “Grapes, Orange, Guava, Mango, Apple” that are defined in the name Fruits.
- Later, Run the macro. The result is shown in the image below.
As a result, we can see from the above image is that there is a dropdown list created in Cell B12 with the values “Grapes, Orange, Guava, Mango, Apple“.
Read More: Create Data Validation Drop-Down List with Multiple Selection in Excel
3. Producing Data Validation Drop Down Box from a Given List with Macro
If you are not very fond of the Named Range option, then this section is for you. Here, you will learn how to produce a dropdown list from a range existing in a dataset.
Steps:
- As shown before, open Visual Basic Editor from the Developer tab and Insert a Module in the code window.
- Then, copy the following code and paste it into the code window.
Sub ProduceDropDownList()
With Range("B12").Validation
 .Add xlValidateList, xlValidAlertStop, xlBetween, "=$B$5:$B$10"
 .InCellDropdown = True
End With
End SubYour code is now ready to run.
This piece of code will produce a dropdown list in Cell B12 with the values present in the range B5:B9.
- Now, Run the macro and look at the following image to see the output.
As a result, we can see from the above image is that there is a dropdown list created in Cell B12 with the values “Grapes, Orange, Guava, Mango, Apple” that we stored in Cell B5 to B9 in the worksheet.
Related Content: Default Value in Data Validation List with Excel VBA (Macro and UserForm)
Similar Readings:
- Excel Data Validation Drop Down List with Filter (2 Methods)
- Data Validation Alphanumeric Only (Using Custom Formula)
- Excel Data Validation Based on Another Cell Value
- How to Use Custom VLOOKUP Formula in Excel Data Validation
4. Implementing VBA to Create Multiple Drop Down Lists in Excel
You can create multiple dropdown lists with VBA macro. Let’s see how to do that in Excel.
Steps:
- At first, open Visual Basic Editor from the Developer tab and Insert a Module in the code window.
- Secondly, in the code window, copy the following code and paste it.
Sub MultipleDropDownList(iTarget As Range, iSource As Range)
   'to delete and add validation in the target range
   With iTarget.Validation
       .Delete
       .Add Type:=xlValidateList, AlertStyle:=xlValidAlertStop, Operator:= _
       xlBetween, Formula1:="=" & iSource.Address
       .IgnoreBlank = True
       .InCellDropdown = True
       .InputTitle = ""
       .ErrorTitle = ""
       .InputMessage = ""
       .ErrorMessage = ""
       .ShowInput = True
       .ShowError = True
   End With
End Sub
Sub DropDownRange()
   MultipleDropDownList Sheet7.Range("B5:B10"), Sheet7.Range("A1:A3")
End SubYour code is now ready to run.
This code will generate a dropdown list in every cell from range B5 to B9.
- Thirdly, Run the macro. Look at the gif below to see the result.
Each and every cell from range B5 to B9 are now holding a dropdown list.
Read More: Apply Custom Data Validation for Multiple Criteria in Excel (4 Examples)
5. Applying VBA to Create Drop-Down List with User-Defined Function
You can also create a dropdown list with a user-defined function (UDF) in Excel.
Steps to get that are shown below.
Steps:
- At the beginning, right-click on the sheet where you want to implement the UDF to create a dropdown list.
- Then, select View Code from the appeared list. As shown below, we right-clicked on the sheet named UDF where our dataset is stored and selected View Code from the options.
- Then, copy the following code and paste it into the auto-generated code window.
Public Function DropDownUDF(iSource As Range) As Variant
   'to delete and add validation in the specified range
   With Selection.Validation
       .Delete
       .Add Type:=xlValidateList, AlertStyle:=xlValidAlertStop, Operator:= _
       xlBetween, Formula1:="=" & iSource.Address
       .IgnoreBlank = True
       .InCellDropdown = True
       .InputTitle = ""
       .ErrorTitle = ""
       .InputMessage = ""
       .ErrorMessage = ""
       .ShowInput = True
       .ShowError = True
   End With
   'this will return the first value
   'this reset the values when formula in sheet are refreshed
   DropDownUDF = VBA.Val(iSource(1))
End Function- Don’t run this code. Save it.
- Then, go back to the worksheet of interest.
- Following that, pick any cell where you want to create the dropdown list (in our case, it is Cell B11).
- In that cell, write the newly created function – DropDownUDF – the way you write any other function. Meaning, first put an equal sign (=), then write the function name, DropDownUDF and pass the cell references (B5:B9) inside the parentheses.
The formula in Cell B11 will be like this:
=DropDownUDF(B5:B9)
- Then, press Enter.
As a result, you will get a dropdown list created by UDF in Cell B11 with the values “Grapes, Orange, Guava, Mango, Apple” that are stored in range B5:B9 and which we passed inside the function.
Read More: How to Use IF Statement in Data Validation Formula in Excel (6 Ways)
6. Extracting Data from Different Sheet in a Drop Down List with VBA
Look at the following image. We have a dataset in the sheet named List.
What we are going to do here is, we will create a dropdown list in Cell B5 of the sheet named Target (shown in the picture below). And the values of that dropdown list will be the values from the range B5:B9 of the List sheet.
Let’s see the steps on how to do that with VBA.
Steps:
- Firstly, open Visual Basic Editor from the Developer tab and Insert a Module in the code window.
- Then, copy the following code and paste it into the code window.
Private Sub DropDownFromSheet()
'to store the dropdown list in cell B5
'you can replace "B5" with any other cell
With Range("B5").Validation
.Delete
'to extract data from "List" sheet and "B5:B9" range
'you can replace "=List!B5:B9" with your sheet name and range
.Add Type:=xlValidateList, AlertStyle:=xlValidAlertStop, _
Operator:=xlBetween, Formula1:="=List!B5:B9"
.IgnoreBlank = True
.InCellDropdown = True
.InputTitle = ""
.ErrorTitle = ""
.InputMessage = ""
.ErrorMessage = ""
.ShowInput = True
.ShowError = True
End With
End SubYour code is now ready to run.
- Later, Run the macro and look at the following image to see the output.
As a result of the successful code execution, there is a dropdown list created in Cell B5 of the Target worksheet with the values “Grapes, Orange, Guava, Mango, Apple” that are stored in range B5:B9 of the List spreadsheet.
Read More: How to Use Data Validation List from Another Sheet (6 Methods)
7. Deleting Data Validation Drop Down List from Excel with VBA Macro
This section will show you how to delete a dropdown list from Excel. We will show you how to delete the existing dropdown list in Cell B5 (shown in the image below) with the VBA macro.
The steps to execute that are given below.
Steps:
- At first, open Visual Basic Editor from the Developer tab and Insert a Module in the code window.
- Then, in the code window, copy the following code and paste
Sub DeleteDropDownList()
Range("B5").Validation.Delete
End SubYour code is now ready to run.
- Later, Run the macro and look at the following image.
As you can see from the above image is that there is no dropdown list anymore in Cell B5. Finally, we have learnt how to delete an existing dropdown list from a spreadsheet with VBA.
Read More: How to Remove Blanks from Data Validation List in Excel (5 Methods)
Conclusion
To conclude, this article showed you 7 different applications of the data validation drop-down list in Excel with the VBA macro. I hope this article has been very beneficial to you. Feel free to ask any questions regarding the topic.
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- How to Use Named Range for Data Validation List with VBA in Excel
- Excel VBA to Create Data Validation List from Array
- How to Use Data Validation in Excel with Color (4 Ways)
- Apply Multiple Data Validation in One Cell in Excel (3 Examples)
How to I integrate these 2 codes so I can use drop down lists to enter new data from the top of a table and once all data is entered have the new data move down the table so I can keep entering data from the top? This would be used in a row with 5 active columns to which only 3 will have coded drop down menus and the other 2 have manually input data.
Private Sub Worksheet_Change(ByVal Target As Excel.Range)
On Error GoTo enditall
Application.EnableEvents = False
If Target.Cells.Column = 4 Then
If Target.Cells.Row = 2 Then
N = Target.Cells.Row
If Range(“D” & N).Value “” Then
Range(“D2”).EntireRow.Insert
Range(“A2”).Select
End If
End If
End If
enditall:
Application.EnableEvents = True
End Sub
Sub CreateDropDownList()
Range(“B5″).Validation.Add Type:=xlValidateList, AlertStyle:=xlValidAlertStop, Formula1:=”Grapes, Orange, Guava, Mango, Apple”
End Sub
Hello, MAC!
Thanks for sharing your problem with us!
To integrate these 2 codes, all you need to do is just define the first sub-procedure name in the second part of the code and add the sheet name there before the range-bounded combination. “Worksheet_Change Sheet1.Range(“B5”).Validation…….” like this.
The code should look like this.
Hope this will help you!
Good Luck!
Regards,
Sabrina Ayon
Author, ExcelDemy.