You may want to use the list choice in Data Validation to restrict the data
entry in a cell to a specific choice list. For greatest convenience, give
your list of customer names a range name in the worksheet where the names
reside. Let's say you'll call it "CustomerName". Now click on a cell in the
worksheet where the customer is to enter the customer name and click
DataValidation. From the Settings tab, choose "List" from the "Allow" combo
box, then enter =CustomerName in the source box. You can modify the Error
Alert message if the user tries to enter a name that is not on the list.
Copy that cell down through the range of input cells you require.

"certain_death" wrote:


Hi all,

Can anybody help me please?

I am trying to build a spreadsheet that has a list of customers on one
sheet (that I control) and some other data on another that a user has
to fill out.

The reason I want this is that all my users are updating data with
different spellings of customers (eg Sainsbury / Sainsbury's) and
obviously then does not give accurate reporting.

What I want the user to do is to update new lines with data, but only
be allowed to select the customers from my sheet (like a drop down list
or combo box). I obviously don't want a combo box on each cell (it has
3000 lines of data), but does anyone have any ideas on how I could
force them to only pick my controlled list???

This could be through protection / macro / vb???

Anything anyone could suggest would be a great help....

Many thanks
Mark
:) :)


--
certain_death
------------------------------------------------------------------------
certain_death's Profile: http://www.excelforum.com/member.php...o&userid=24561
View this thread: http://www.excelforum.com/showthread...hreadid=551386