Think you could also consider using a combo box (drawn from the Forms
toolbar) with its linked cell functionality returning the numbers that you
seek

Try this simple experiment ..

Put in A1: Text1
Fill A1 down to A20
This rapidly creates a list of 20 items: Text1, Text2 ... Text20

From the Forms* toolbar, click on Combo box icon,
then draw a combo box somewhere on the sheet
(*activate via: View Toolbars Forms, if necess.)

Right-click on the combo box Format Control

In the Control tab, make the settings:
Input range: $A$1:$A$20
Cell link: $B$1
Click OK

Test it out!

Select from the combo box droplist: Text1
The linked cell, i.e. B1 will show: 1
(since Text1 is the 1st item in the list)

Select Text 10, B1 will return: 10
Select Text 19, B1 will return: 19
And so on ..

--
Rgds
Max
xl 97
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xdemechanik <atyahoo<dotcom
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wrote in message
oups.com...
Hello,
Can anyone tell me how I can assign a value to a word from a dropdown
list in excel?
In other words if I choose an item from the dropdown list, how can I
assign a static value to it?
An example would be if I select the item "apple" from the list, it
would automatically assign the number 5 to it that I can use in a
formula.
Thanks in advance.