I have a question about fill in cells in excel kind of like a list or a
combo box. I have someome that wants to be able to start typing in
excel and have the rest of the characters popup like the url address
does in IE. I don't think that this is possible in excel, but I could
be wrong because I'm not that familiar with it. I would think that it
would have to be backed up by a database for this to work. Could
someone help me on this one. I would like to initially do it with out
a DB behind it. I have ID#'s and Client names that I would like to
popup into the cells after typing a few of the numbers/letters. Is
this possible in Excel??
Thanks
Bob


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Maybe...

Excel has an option to use the adjacent (in the same column) entries.

You can toggle that option via:
tools|Options|edit tab|check Enable autocomplete for cell values

Because this uses the previous entries in the column, it'll get smarter each
time you another unique item.

======
The other option is to use a combobox from the control toolbox toolbar. This
does support that kind of feature.

======
Another option if the id's and client names are unique:

Type in the id, then use =vlookup() to return the client name.

You'd have to build a table of id's and client names (on a separate sheet) and
once you build that table, you could use Data|validation to allow the user to
pick the id (but not the autocomplete stuff).

If you want to read more about =vlookup(), visit Debra Dalgleish's site:
http://www.contextures.com/xlFunctions02.html

More about Data|Validation??
http://www.contextures.com/xlDataVal01.html

bwall wrote:

I have a question about fill in cells in excel kind of like a list or a
combo box. I have someome that wants to be able to start typing in
excel and have the rest of the characters popup like the url address
does in IE. I don't think that this is possible in excel, but I could
be wrong because I'm not that familiar with it. I would think that it
would have to be backed up by a database for this to work. Could
someone help me on this one. I would like to initially do it with out
a DB behind it. I have ID#'s and Client names that I would like to
popup into the cells after typing a few of the numbers/letters. Is
this possible in Excel??
Thanks
Bob

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Dave Peterson

Thanks for the Reply!
I'm looking at the dataValidation link you posted and you other
comments, I just noticed this reply now. I posted this question that
is a better explanation of what I needed to do. I will look over you
answers to my question. THANKS.

I have question about autocompleting cells with information. i wanted
to initially use access for this, but ther person that needs this
insists that he wants to use excel.

When he fills out his sheets he wants to have the cell autocomplete the
rest of the ID # and the name when he starts to type in a cell.

I was wondering if this could be done by loading a sort of client
information sheet, worksheet, whatever with the client id # and name.
Then have a dropdown box or combo box to pull the client id information
from the sheet were it is kept. The same being done with the name
(possibly just auto completing name with the correct id number is
entered or vice versa).
I have imported the table from access into an excel file. I started
all these tasks in access before I heard that excel was preferred.

I have some other cells were I used the data validation in excel to
load a dropdown list of options to fill the cell. This is ok for these
few cells, but more clients may be added to the client sheet and I would
like to be able to add them to the client sheet and have them fill into
the dropdown for the client ID and client name on the report sheets
that I have laid out that are spoken of above.

Is there a simple way or a way to perform these actions of loading and
pulling info from another sheet that has the client id and number so
that it doesn't have to be typed in everytime on the sheet that the
paper reports are put into.

I don't want to get into any crazy coding, because I think that this
could be done without all this in access.


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Ok I figured out the using two worksheets and naming a range in the
namebox and loading into dataValidation from Data on the menu bar.
=rangeName in the source.

Is there a way to set the combobox and dropdowns as the other sheets
grows? It seems that I missing that setting.


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