- Aug 5
Excel Drop-downs and Wildcards
- Neale Blackwood
- Tips & Shortcuts
- 0 comments
I just found out that Excel’s in-cell drop-downs via Data Validation allow wildcards characters that match an entry in the list. Wildcards combinations that don’t match are rejected.
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1 min read
In the image below we have some colours in a list in column A. Cell D1 has an in-cell drop-down referring to that list.
I can enter r* in cell D1 and Excel accepts it.
I can enter r?? and Excel allows it.
But r? is rejected as it doesn’t match an entry in the list.
The ? symbol represents a single character, while * represents multiple characters.
So r? means two characters starting with r.
Also any letters not in the list are rejected.
I have never tried this before, so I am not sure how long this has been around.