What you're describing is Dependent Lists.

See Debra Dalgleish's website for instructions:
http://www.contextures.com/xlDataVal02.html

Does that help?
***********
Regards,
Ron

XL2002, WinXP


"Mike Langensiepen" wrote:

Could anybody please advise me on the best way of having conditional drop
downs.

What I would like is a drop down for my first column that selects from a
list of manufacturers and then from that selection, select a list of
appropriate colours from that manufacturer. This list of manufacturers is
less than 10 but the list of colours per manufacturer is about 50

Thanks

Mike