Thank you for your reply.
I tried it and it does the first part of my question. The problem is, that
even if I leave a blank line at the top of the list, when the sheet is
protected it won't let you type anything into the field, unlike a combobox.
If I leave the sheet unprotected I can type something into the "category"
field but when I try to enter something into the "item" field it gives me the
following error, "The value you entered is not valid.", "A user has
restricted values that can be entered into this cell."
What it seems I need is to do this data validation with comboboxes. Is there
any way to do that?

"JE McGimpsey" wrote:

See

http://www.contextures.com/xlDataVal02.html

In article ,
Jono wrote:

I need to have a list of OEMs to choose from. Once that is done I want the
next list to be only that OEM's products. I also need to have the ability to
have a "write in", for "in-the-field" use, instead of having the user go into
the data table. I will add permanent listings to the data table.