How To Create Drop-Down Cells in Google Sheets

There are various ways in which we can use Google Sheets. Crafting budgets, managing small projects and creating various lists are just some of the things we can do with this popular Spread Sheet tool.

While most of our Spread Sheet work revolves around simple table tasks, once in a while there is a need for including more advanced features in the mix. And those features are, unfortunately, not as transparent as their simpler counterparts.

Introducing drop-down cells. In case you are not familiar with their role in our lives: they are basically cell boxes with preset multiple choices. They save your time by giving you pre defined values for each cell and thus give a wider functionality to Google Sheets. By utilizing them you can quickly assign team members to specific tasks on your project, grade performance or simply manage your resources.

Here is how you can create drop-down cells in Google Spread Sheet:

1) Go to Google Drive and open your SpreadSheet that you wish to add drop down boxes to.

In this case we have entered some example tasks that we want to assign to certain employees.

2) The next step is to add the values that your drop-down cells are going to contain. For this example we are going to use the names of the employees. Create a new tab and enter the names. This additional tab will be the source of the data for your drop-down cells.

3) Go back to your first tab and select the cells that you want to have the drop-down feature. Right click on your selection and then choose “Data Validation”.

4) On the pop up window, click “Select Data Range”, which is presented as a sheet icon on the right side.

5) Select the data of your choice. We switched to our “Employees” tab and selected the cells containing their names.

And that’s it! Each selected cell will now have a drop-down selection, something similar to the example below. You can assign values by clicking on them from the drop-down menu or by typing in the first letter, after which the cell will automatically fill.

Overall, this is a great Google Sheets feature that can significantly automate certain aspects of your work, especially if you are often dealing with several types of resources.

Do you know any other way of improving Google SpreadSheet performance? Share your thoughts in the comments.