Is this a feature new to Excel 2002?

[Tod]

Someone has given me a workbook to do some modifications.
One of the features in the worksheet is something that
I've never seen before. (I don't know if that says
something about me or something about Excel. :0)

When a certain cell is made active, a down arrow appears
next to the cell. I can click on the arrow and it will
show a list of values. I can select one of the values and
it will become the value for that cell. It gets the values
for the list from another worksheet in the book. So in
other words, just like a combobox. But, it does not appear
to be an ActiveX control, a form control, there's no code
for it, no code in the book at all. What is this?

tod

 

[Andy Wiggins]

I think you are refering to "Data > Validation" which has been around since
(at least) Excel 97.
It's on the Data menu.

--
Regards
Andy Wiggins
www.BygSoftware.com
Home of "Save and BackUp",
"The Excel Auditor" and "Byg Tools for VBA"

 

[Just4fun]

But data validation won't let you refer to another worksheet/book !

true or not ?

 

[Tom Ogilvy]

Absolutely False.

 

[Ron de Bruin]

Read this
http://www.contextures.com/xlDataVal05.html

 

[Mark Thorpe]

Hi Tod -

It's not new - it's a form of data validation. You can restrict the values
which can be assigned to a particular cell using the Data Validation dialog.
Click on the Validation menu item in the Data menu. Here you can specify the
validation criteria - which type of value may be entered, min and max value
allowed, etc. If you select "List" from the Allow dropdown, you can then
specify the range of values which may be accepted, by entering the Source.
This is what turns your cell into a dropdown list.

Using the other tabs in the Data Validation dialog, you also have the option
to show an input message which appears when the user selects the cell, and
an error alert message which appears if the user enters an invalid value.

Hope that helps.