At least the first part of your question sounds like the built in Autofilter
capability under Data=Filter=Autofilter.

--
Regards,
Tom Ogilvy


"Chris" wrote:

I am not sure if it is possible, I'm sure there must be a way of doing this.
what I want to do is have a group of columns next to each other and have a
drop down box in each cell. the user would select something from the first
columns list, and then dependant on what was selected, the list in the second
drop down would be updated and so on.
The way I was thinking was if there was a way of getting it to notice when
something is selected in the active cells drop down and then filter the list
by that selection and copy the filtered list into the range that the second
column reads