Have a look in the help index for VLOOKUP

--
Don Guillett
Microsoft MVP Excel
SalesAid Software

"Jen" wrote in message
...
I am relatively new to the more technical side of Excel and can't figure
out
one particular issue. I have a large number of columns in my spreadsheet,
but
some only need to be filled out if a particular value is chosen from a
drop-down menu. For example, if the user has the option of choosing
"apple",
"orange", "pear" or "banana" from a list, I want them to then fill out
some
more information based on that choice - if they pick "apple" then I may
want
to know how red it was, whether it had a leaf on etc. But if they pick
"banana" then I don't need to know that information - I need to know other
things instead.

Is there a way to "grey out" or lock particular cells in Excel so that
they
will only be unlocked and available for data entry if a certain value is
entered in a different cell? In other words, the ability to enter data in
certain columns is dependent on a previous choice?

I hope I managed to make sense there... Thanks!