Today’s author is Reinout Dorreboom from the Netherlands, a Technical Consultant at Getronics, where he has worked with Office applications for many years, and where his Microsoft Certified Training skills enabled him to help other people get up to speed with Excel. 
In Excel 2007 (and earlier), it’s possible to create a drop-down list. By using the INDIRECT function, you can then create additional drop-down lists that are conditional to the first drop-down list. 
In this example we’ll create the following table:   
A 
B 
C 
D 
1   
Country 
City 
Street 
2 
David 
Netherlands 
Rotterdam 
Abraham van Stolkweg 
3 
Linda 
Germany 
Munich 
MunichStreet1 
4 
Peter 
Britain 
London 
Bacon Street (E1)  
Columns B, C, and D contain drop-down lists. If you select Netherlands in the drop-down list in column B, only Dutch cities will be displayed in the drop-down list in Column C. If you select Germany, only German cities will be displayed in the drop-down list in Column C. Similarly, when you select a city in Column C, only the street names of that city will be displayed in column D. 
To create conditional lists, complete the following procedures. Enter the data 
First, we’ll create the table as shown below. 
 
 
Now, we’ll create a few lists. 
First, we’ll create a list of countries. In this example, we create the following countries: In Cell F1, type Netherlands. In Cell G1, type Britain. In Cell H1, type Germany. 
As you can see I made a horizontal list instead of a vertical list. This isn’t really necessary, but it is easier to maintain to keep the cities under the right country. 
Second, we’ll add three cities to pick from for each country. 
 
 
Cell F2: Amsterdam 
Cell G2: London 
Cell H2: Bonn 
Cell F3: Rotterdam 
Cell G3: Canterbury 
Cell H3: Berlin 
Cell F4: Eindhoven 
Cell G4: Manchester 
Cell H4: Munich  
Now, we’ll create a list of streets for each city. In the example, you can then choose from two streets per city. 
 
 
Cell F8: AmsterdamStreet1 
Cell G8: LondonStreet1 
Cell H8: BonnStreet1 
Cell F9: AmsterdamStreet2 
Cell G9: LondonStreet2 
Cell H9: BonnStreet2 
Cell F11: RotterdamStreet1 
Cell G11: CanterburyStreet1 
Cell H11: BerlinStreet1 
Cell F12: RotterdamStreet2 
Cell G12: CanterburyStreet2 
Cell H12: BerlinStreet2 
Cell F14: EindhovenStreet1 
Cell G14: ManchesterStreet1 
Cell H14: MunichStreet1 
Cell F15: EindhovenStreet2 
Cell G15: ManchesterStreet2 
Cell H15: MunichStreet2  
The worksheet should look like this now: 
 
 Define the names 
Ok, all content is provided. Now we can start creating a name for each range. Select the cells F2:F4 and name the range: Netherlands Select the cells G2:G4 and name the range: Britain Select the cells H2:H4 and name the range: Germany 
 Select the cells F7:F8 and name the range: Amsterdam Select the cells F10:F11 and name the range: Rotterdam Select the cells F13:F14 and name the range: Eindhoven 
 Select the cells G7:G8 and name the range: London Select the cells G10:G11 and name the range: Canterbury Select the cells G13:G14 and name the range: Manchester 
 Select the cells H7:H8 and name the range: Bonn Select the cells H10:H11 and name the range: Berlin Select the cells H13:H14 and name the range: Munich 
For information about how to define names, see Define and use names in formulas. Create the drop-down lists 
After defining the names, we can create the drop-down lists. 
First, we’ll make a drop-down list for Country. 
1. Select cell B2. 
2. On the ribbon,
Windows 7 64 Bit, click the Data tab. 
3. In the Data Tools group,
Genuine Office 2010, click Data Validation. 
4. Fill the values as follows: 
   In the Allow box, select List. 
   In the Source box, type =$F$1:$H$1 
 
 
 
Note: Dollar signs ($) are used in the formula so that we can drag the cell downwards from David to Peter. 
5. Click OK. 
6. Drag the cell content downwards. 
 
 
 
Now, we’ll make the first conditional drop-down list. 
1. Select Cell C1. 
2. On the ribbon, click the Data tab. 
3. In the Data Tools group, click Data Validation. 
4. Fill the values as follows:     In the Allow box, select List. 
   In the Source box, type =INDIRECT($B2) 
       
 
 
Note: In the formula, a Dollar sign ($) is not placed before the row. That is because we want to drag the cell formula downwards. 
5. Click OK. 
 
Note: If you click OK,
Microsoft Office Professional 2007, you may get an error message indication that the evaluation of the formula was an error. This is correct, because the cell where this list depends on (B2) is empty. 
 
 
 
6. Drag the cell content downwards. 
 
 
Now, we’ll make our second conditional drop-down list. 
1. Select cell D2. 
2. On the ribbon, click the Data tab. 
3. In the Data Tools group, click Data Validation. 
4. Fill the values as follows: 
 
     In the Allow box,
Purchase Office 2010, select List. 
   In the Source box, type =INDIRECT($C2) 
      
 
 
Note: In the formula, a Dollar sign ($) is not placed before the row. That is because we want to drag the cell formula downwards. 
5. Click OK. 
 
Note: If you click OK, you may get an error message indicating that the evaluation of the formula was an error. This is correct, because the cell on which this list depends (C2) is empty. 
 
 
 
6. Drag the cell content downwards. 
 
 
Done! 
If you choose a country,
Windows 7 Activation Key, the City field displays only cities for that country. And only streets for the selected city will be shown. <div